Calling all Gleeks! Get more of your favorite characters in this official Glee prequel! All great performances deserve a warm-up! Enroll early at McKinley High--before New Directions was even a glimmer in Mr. Schuester's eye. When did Rachel first decide Finn was more than just a jock? When did Puck and Quinn start their secret romance? And how did the fledgling Glee Club function without a fearless leader? Hint: It wasn't exactly a perfect melody. Break out the gold stars and refill the slushies: It's time to find out what happened to all your favorite characters before the show-mance began. Find out more at www.readglee.com Sophia Lowell is a talented and seasoned YA novelist, as well as a "Gleek." Each original Glee novel is written to reflect the show's intelligent comedic sensibility and quirky, heartfelt storylines. Glee: The Beginning An Original Novel By Lowell, Sophia Poppy Copyright © 2010 Lowell, Sophia All right reserved. ISBN: 9780316123594 one Principal Figgins’s office, Monday morning Rachel 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 scream overachiever —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 for some reason she was always scowling at Rachel, which seemed unfair. She should be happy to see someone who was not a juvenile delinquent enter the principal’s office. “Is Principal Figgins in?” “Do you have an appointment, 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’s inner 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. For Rachel, 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 the front 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. 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 ballot counters, told Rachel that no candidate 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 behind their cars to smoke the last puffs of their cigarettes. A group of football players was hovering around a couple of freshmen, probably threatening to lock them in the porta-potty near the stadium’s bleachers. “I’m very busy today. Someone poured ten gallons of blue raspberry Kool-Aid into the swimming pool, and the entire swim team is stained blue.” He sighed heavily. His slight Indian accent became more pronounced when he was flustered. As the daughter of two gay dads, Rachel appreciated the fact that Lima was surprisingly diverse, for the Midwest. “I’m sorry for the interruption, Principal Figgins, but it’s very important.” She gracefully sat down in one