Chapter Text
“Did you want to see me?”
Marinette asked after knocking on the door and being called in. To her surprise, Ms. Mendeleiev, Ms. Bustier and Mr. Damocles were in the Principal’s office, along with the lying liar who lies.
“I’m sorry Marinette, but I couldn’t keep quiet about…”
“Silence” said Ms. Mendeleiev, without raising her voice. Lila immediately shut up. “Marinette, please come in and take a seat. Do you know why we called you here?”
“No” said Marinette, taking the only seat available, unfortunately at Lila’s side.
“Lila says you copied the essay I assigned for today from her.”
“… what”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s fair that you can use my work to…” a glare form Miss Mendeleiev made Lila shut up again. Marinette was fuming, now she was going to get her in trouble with the teachers? And with Mendeleiev of all people!
“As you both know, I take cheating very seriously, and will not forgive someone who tried to pass someone else’s work as their own.”
Marinette looked at Lila, who managed to give her a small smug smile while their teacher turned around.
“Lila, what do you think would be the appropriate punishment for a cheater?”
“Well, a couple of days of detention, of course. Redo the work completely. Maybe do lines of ‘I will not steal the work of someone else’. Oh! And have a parent-teacher talk. And a public apology, because being dishonest is just wrong!”
Miss Mendeleiev raised an eyebrow at Lila. “Harsh, but fair. I guess that will be an appropriate punishment after all.” She turned to Marinette. “Marinette…” Marinette was wondering how her parents were going to take this accusation of cheating. She was sure she would be grounded for a couple of weeks at least. And for something she didn’t! “Marinette, thank you for coming so quickly. I’m sorry we wasted your time, you may go now.”
Everyone looked at Miss Mendeleiev with surprise.
“You’re not going to punish her?” asked Lila, incredulous.
“Why should I?”
“She stole my work!”
“I find it hard to believe that you would choose the implement of silver in fashion through history as the subject of your essay, when you have never shown any interest in fashion design before, while Marinette has won contests and actually has done commissions for people. Plus, Marinette has always been a very good student. Not perfect, but who is?”
“So you’re not going to punish Marinette?”
“What for? At most I would advice her to guard better her homework so other people don’t copy it without her consent, but that would be blaming the victim”
“I did not copy her; she copied me!”
Miss Mendeleiev looked at Lila with a rather bored expression. “Marinette, what is the atomic weight of silver?”
“107.8… and something?”
“Acceptable. Lila… what is the symbol for silver?”
“Huh… it’s… uhm… Si?”
“Incorrect. Marinette?”
“Ag, it comes from the Latin argentum and it means ‘off white’”
“Excellent. I think you deserve full marks in your essay after all”
Lila glared at Marinette, who was still very confused about the whole ordeal.
“I’m sorry, but why did you call Marinette if you were sure she didn’t do anything wrong?” asked Miss Bustier, just as confused.
“Because I wanted to see how far Rossi would go. And now, I believe one of the parts of her punishment was to call her mother, which I think I’ll do right this moment. Marinette, you may go, and again, sorry for wasting your time. We will arrange for the public apology later.”
Marinette nodded and left the office after that, glad that at least one of the teachers had some common sense. She could still hear Lila blabbing some lame excuses, but Mendeleiev was having none of it. She sighed, pretty sure Lila would be akumatized sooner or later.