Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Marinette had been thrilled when her design was picked to move on to the next stage of the Gabriel design competition. She had put in a lot of hard work (and a lot of paper- she had had to get a recycling bin for her room so that she wouldn't get buried under an avalanche of discarded designs) to get a design that she had been fully proud of, and there had been a lot of tough competition. Being selected to continue- and as the youngest person picked to move on to the next stage- was amazing, and nothing could bring her down. She was actually going to get to make her design and have an actual model wear it in a runway show where a panel of judges would decide who was going to win.
It. Was. Amazing.
And then Marinette learned that, as a Gabriel model, Lila was going to be at the runway and awards show. She wasn't going to be Marinette's model, thankfully- her luck wasn't that bad- but since she was (technically) a Gabriel employee, Lila was automatically going to have full unsupervised run of the backstage area.
"Oh, this is a disaster!" Marinette groaned to Tikki that evening, burying her face in her hands. "Lila was so smug when she brought it up, I just know that she'll do something to destroy my dress! And then I'll have to withdraw from the competition, and no one will believe me when I say that it was Lila who did it, and-"
"Marinette, I'm sure all you'll have to do is stay near the dress and then Lila won't be able to do anything!" Tikki told her. "And maybe you can get, like, a long raincoat or something to go over it before the runway so that Lila can't spill anything on it. It'll be fine!"
Marinette was shaking her head. "Except I can't. We're supposed to do any last-minute fittings when we arrive, then hang up our dresses and do a short presentation about who we are and our design process while the models get their hair and makeup done. The dresses will all be backstage and unattended then, and I bet that that's when Lila's going to strike!"
Tikki frowned. "Oh." She tilted her tiny head to the side, considering. "Maybe you could ask one of your friends to guard your dress?"
"I don't know if any of them would be allowed backstage, and nobody is actually going to think that Lila's any sort of threat!" Marinette flopped over, staring up at the ceiling. "Besides Adrien, obviously, but he's going to be expected to be out with his father. I don't know what to do! Obviously I can't drop out, that would be stupid, but I just know Lila's going to ruin this for me."
"Hmm." Tikki settled on the lounger next to Marinette, tiny brows furrowed in thought. Then she perked up. "Maybe something will happen and people won't trust Lila anymore by the time the runway rolls around! It is more than a month out, after all. I think you should just go ahead and sew like you planned before, and then try to come up with a plan closer to the date if things haven't changed by then."
"I suppose." Marinette worried her lip for a second, then sat up. "It's the only thing I can do, really. That, and make sure that no one gets into my room when I'm not here. I'll have to talk to mom and dad about that. And I'm not going to do any babysitting until after the contest is over- I don't trust any of the kids I watch to not destroy anything!"
