Glee The Beggenings

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Principal Figgins’s office, Monday morning







achel Berry paused outside the door to Principal Figgins’s office just long enough to straighten her kneesocks and smooth down the sides of her corduroy
skirt. Her bright white button-down and pink-and-green argyle sweater-vest seemed to screamoverachiever – not that Principal Figgins needed to be reminded that Rachel Berry was special. McKinley High wasn’t the kind of high school where students wanted to stand out. And Rachel stood out.
‘Good morning, Mrs Goodrich.’ Rachel smiled her 1,000- watt smile at the dour-faced secretary in the outer office. Mrs Goodrich always smelled like cookie dough, and forsome reason she was always scowling at Rachel, which seemed
unfair. She should be happy to see someone who was not a


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juvenile delinquent enter the principal’s office. ‘Is Principal

Figgins in?’

‘Do you have anappointment, Rachel?’ Mrs Goodrich’s beady eyes stared down at Rachel over the tops of her tiny bifocals.
‘No, but Principal Figgins told me he is always glad to see me.’ Rachel breezed past Mrs Goodrich’s desk, feeling a faint craving for cookies. As her penny loafers padded quietly across the worn industrial carpet and through the open door of the principal’sinner office, she couldn’t help thinking it was kind of sad when a principal couldn’t even get hardwood floors. But Rachel wouldn’t let the sadness of Principal Figgins’s existence bring her down – not today. Maybe he was stuck in a crappy office in crappy Lima, Ohio, but Rachel Berry wasn’t going to be here forever. Not if she had anything to say about it.
ForRachel, freshman year had been a bit of a failure. She had thought high school was going to be all about coming into her own and helping people around her realize what a truly incredible and talented person she was. Instead, every time she raised her hand to give the – always correct – answer in history class, her fellow classmates rolled their eyes; every time she went to thefront of the room to answer – correctly
– the algebra problem on the board, she’d be tripped; and whenever she volunteered to act out one of the parts – usually the lead – in whatever Shakespeare play they were reading in Mr Horn’s English class, she’d be heckled. Only in Lima
would someone be ridiculed for aspiring to get out of Lima.2






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But the culmination of her humiliation had been her failed campaign for class president. The poster board signs she’d made with such care, combining patriotic red, white, and blue stripes with her signature gold stars, were nearly of professional quality. But the signs,along with the catchy slogans she and her dads had come up with, had all been desecrated in varying ways by naysayers. Someone had taken a Sharpie and changed VOTE BERRY – SHE’S A STAR to VOTE BERRY – SHE’S BIZARRE. After the election, which popular Sebastian Carmichael had won, to no one’s surprise, Rachel demanded a recount. Jessica Davenport, one of the official ballotcounters, told Rachel that no candi- date had ever lost by such a large margin. In the history of the school. She said they’d double-counted, just because they thought it was a mistake. It wasn’t.
‘Rachel. Good morning.’ Principal Figgins looked up briefly from his desk. The window behind him looked out on the student parking lot in all its glory, with students hiding...