stoney321 | I'm as shocked as you. GLEE-FIC [Gen]

So this happened during our comment fest last night.

Author: Stoney
Fandom: GLEE
Rating: PG
Summary: You know the chorus that sings during the show? They can hear that. At McKinley. (Short fic)
Disclaimer: This is fanfiction, no money, no ownership by me, yadda yadda.
A/N: This is a TOE DIP. It's been 2 years since I wrote fanfiction, omg.

~*~The Bumpers~*~

It started off with the weird little Seinfeld popping noises, the ones that played between scenes? In the biz they call it a bump. Old Lady Crenshaw, who had worked at McKinley since it opened back in the days of the Roman Empire, was slowly losing her mind. But at McKinley, no one really noticed. Old Lady Crenshaw was the person in charge of the loudspeakers at the school.

Sometimes she'd remember to hit the button that rang the bell to signal the end of class, and sometimes she... improvised. So, the Seinfeld bump would ring out over the school's loudspeakers. At first, all of the students (and some of the teachers) would laugh in disbelief. “What the hell?” would bounce off the lockers. Sometimes the bump would play during class. Or when kids were switching from second to third period, mid-way through the four minute break. It was something you just got used to.

One time during the Cheerios second Nationals practice, Crenshaw caused the top Cheerio on the pyramid to fall and break her femur. Those were her Carl Orff “Carmina Burana” days. She really got into that chorus number when the tympani went nutso. Sue Sylvester body checked every single student between the gymnasium doors and the front office, stormed in, and read Crenshaw the riot act.

“And if you so much as even hover your wrinkled, gnarled troll finger anywhere near that damn red button, Lady Life Alert, I'll bite it off and spit it down your dead cat's throat.”

Old Lady Crenshaw just smiled benignly and continued knitting. “That's nice, dear.”

Principal Figgins had to clothesline her to keep her from stabbing the poor woman in the eye with her own knitting needle. Crenshaw didn't notice, of course. And she promptly queued “O Fortuna” to blast at the end of sixth period.

One year for Christmas her grandson had given her a CD, “So You Want To Learn To Sing!” The track listing started with basic notes, then moved on to scales. Two or three women singing a clear and perfect “DOO doo doo doo doo doo doo doo DOO!” quickly and cleanly. The last tracks had a few women with some male voices added to the mix singing an oompah-oompah sort of scales, C, A, E, C, and so forth. A few scat-beats rounded out the disc.

Dave Karofsky was only a sophomore, but was already making a name for himself on the football field. He leaned against a table in the lunchroom, a crowd of admirers gathered around him. A girl brought him his daily cherry slushie from the 7-11 across the street when the loudspeakers suddenly went off.

“DOO doo doo doo doo doo doo doo DOO!”

Crenshaw must have cranked those speakers to 11. It was so unexpected and out of the blue, Dave jumped, spilling the slushie all over his white tee shirt. He saw red, and not just spreading all over his clothes. He crushed the foam cup in his hand and stalked out of the cafeteria, looking for blood. Some weird girl in a sweater with an appliqué kitty on it and Pegasus knee socks was walking briskly down the hall, her books clutched to her chest. She was smiling.

She was singing the damn scales.

The girl from the lunch room ran up to Karofsky, breathlessly sputtering an apology. She was trying to give him a new slushie. Without thinking or even making eye contact with her, he grabbed the drink from the girl's hand. His eyes were a laser beam on the idiot singing that damn music in front of him.

“HEY. You. Streisand!”

Rachel whipped her head to the side, thrilled beyond belief to have been called her idol. “Oh, thank you! I just love her! I just love this new music the school is playing, DOO doo doo-”

David flung the contents of his cup into her face. He was wet, sticky, cold, and angry. He knew he couldn't pound on some old lady's face, much as he would like to do so. And this little... thing, in her stupid clothes, with her stupid smile, singing that stupid music? She deserved to be as miserable as he was.

A few of the guys from the football team saw him fling the drink at the nerdy girl with the sparkle head band, saw her standing in the middle of the hallway, gaping in shock. They laughed, clapped Dave on the shoulder, and it was decided that it would be the new thing to do whenever they heard that shitty noise on the loudspeaker. The 7-11 across the street was about to get a lot of repeat business.

Eventually it got to the point where no one really heard that weird bump anymore, but it was always there, always in the background. Like a sleeper agent trigger.

The Glee kids never had a chance.