Chapter 2: The Crowd Turns
The words You broke into the Dean’s office hung in the air, and the crowd went dead silent. Jake’s face turned bright red, and he took a step back, like he couldn’t believe Lila had said it out loud. Margaret’s mouth fell open, and she sputtered, “That’s a lie! You have no proof-”
“Actually, I do,” Lila said, stepping out of the fountain and walking over to the makeshift podium where the graduation speeches were supposed to be given. She plugged the USB drive into the podium’s built-in projector, and the screen behind her flickered to life, showing the blurry footage of Jake breaking into the Dean’s office. The crowd gasped, and a parent in the front row yelled, “Oh my god, that’s your son, Margaret!”
Margaret lunged for the podium, but a group of graduation marshals stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “This is a setup!” Jake yelled, waving his hands. “She edited the footage! She’s trying to take me down because she’s jealous!”
Lila didn’t even look at him. She pulled up a second file on the projector, showing a timestamped email from Jake to his mom, sent at 10:02 PM the night of the break-in: Mom, I changed my grade to an A. The Dean didn’t see me. Don’t tell anyone. The email had been sent from the school’s Wi-Fi network, and Lila had pulled the server logs from the campus IT department the night before, after sneaking into the IT office with the same password she’d used for the security room.
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“Jealous?” Lila said, her voice steady. “I’ve had a 4.0 GPA since freshman year. I don’t need to cheat to get an internship. You did this because you were scared I’d beat your son out of the spot. You broke into the Dean’s office, changed your own grade, and framed me. And now you have to face the consequences.”
The crowd erupted into cheers and boos. A group of Lila’s classmates started chanting, “Jake! Jake! Jake!” and Margaret grabbed Jake’s arm and tried to pull him toward the exit. But the school principal, Dr. Carter, stepped in front of them, holding up a hand. “Everyone, please calm down. We will conduct a full investigation of this footage and these emails. Graduation will be paused while we sort this out.”
