Gleeboot (Season 2)

13. Keep It Together

Mona glanced up as Kat slammed her lunch tray on the table in front of her. It was Monday morning and her lunchtime had been exceptionally quiet before Kat's abrupt arrival. But Kat had been stressed and in her own world all morning.

When Mona was finally going to ask her what was wrong, Kat said, "We have nothing left in our budget for costumes. Nada."

"Ok?" said Mona.

"I promised I'd take care of the costumes," said Kat. "I'm supposed to have them already. Beautiful, fully-correctly sown costumes. We have four days to get everything ready for Regionals."

"Just look in the closet and reuse the costumes from other years," said Mona. "No one cares."

"I care!" Kat exclaimed. "I can't go digging for old costumes. We're a brand new glee club. Half of our members are all new, with different sizes. I mean, I suppose I could make alternations but... I just know Mia would flip if I suggested we..."

She trailed off as Mona had shrugged her off and started reading a book, tuned out of the conversation. But it didn't matter. Kat had gotten an idea.

***

After school, as the glee club met for rehearsals, they arrived to find the choir room full of old clothes, all from previous competitions. 

"Did we get ransacked?" asked Alex.

"I bet it was the football team," Lucas suggested.

"What's going on?" asked Sam as he walked in behind the group.

Kat stood up on one of the chairs to see them above the piles of clothes. "Hi everyone," she began. "Since we can't afford new outfits for Regionals, nor is there enough time for me to make them, I thought maybe we could mix and match parts from previous years and create something new. It'll be like... a time capsule through the history of the New Directions."

Perla pulled up a pair of pants from the stack nearest to her and asked, "You can't be serious?"

"I am," said Kat, who grabbed  a dress and walked it over to Perla. "I think you'd look beautiful in this."

"I think it's hideous," said Perla, making a face at it.

Santana had just walked into the room and, seeing it, said, "Hey, I wore that when I had my big Sectionals solo." 

She snatched the dress from Kat as Sam said, "Oh yeah. That was my first competition." He reached for another dress, one black and gold metallic, and said, "These are kind of nice?"

"They're cursed," Santana informed them. "We lost Regionals in those. And someone gave birth." The kids glanced around, horrified, as Santana added, "Sam, can we chat about bus schedules?"

Sam nodded and told Kat, "Let's clear this so we can rehearse. Thanks." He followed Santana to his office. Meanwhile, the kids got to work cleaning up and Kat asked the group, "So what do you all think? There's plenty to pick from. We can even put together different parts. Like, I can sow the belt from this dress to this one... And layre some of these fabrics..."

"No offense," said Mia as she watched Kat try to put together pieces. "But this idea is bad. I mean, it's just that nothing here is wearable." Kat sighed, giving up on finding good combinations. "But fear not, my friend," Mia said, putting an arm around her shoulders, "because I'm here to save us. I thought about it over the weekend and since some people imply that I only care about myself, I want to prove them wrong and help us at the same time."

"What are you talking about?" Perla asked her.

"I'm going to pull my birthday money to use on fabric," Mia announced proudly, "so that Kat can make us brand new costumes."