Little Annotations | Tristan Dugray

chapter three

Chilton had an odd feeling in the air that Tuesday morning. Genevieve didn't know whether it was the cold autumn day or the cloudy weather that gave everything an eerie feel. She was in her history class when Headmaster Charleston came into class, which caused her entire day to go to shit.

"Mr. Medina, do you mind if I pull two students out of class?" He asked.

"No, go ahead," He said.

"Miss Clairmont, Mister Dugray, my office please," He said, not waiting for a response. The two slid their chairs back and packed their stuff up, knowing that a meeting with headmaster Charleston was never a short one, no matter the situation.

"What do you think he wants us for?" She said, on the way to his office.

"Maybe they want to do an interview?" He suggested, "Smartest student at Chilton and the dumbest,"

"Hm," Was all she said as she walked past the receptionist, and into Charleston's office.

"Ah please, sit down," He motioned to the chair in front of him, they sat down without a word, "Here at Chilton we take pride in our knowledge-"

"We've been going to this school for eleven years now," Genevieve said, she was the only one in the entire school with the confidence to mouth off to the headmaster himself, "With all due respect, can you please get to your point sir?"

"Mr. Dugray, it has come to my attention that you received an exemplary score on your English test two weeks ago, correct?"

"Yes sir," He said.

"Now I'm curious, based on your previous scores, you have never scored anything higher than a seventy on your english tests," Headmaster Charleston read off of a file, "And based off of your previous academic standing, I can not find it in me to believe that you had it in you to score such a high score. Miss Clairmont was in front of you, perhaps-"

"You're accusing me of cheating?"

Tristan said at the same time as Genevieve said, "You're accusing him of cheating?"

"I'm accusing you of cheating off of miss Clairmont here," He said, pulling out Tristan's test, "She does sit in front of you. She is the top student at this school, higher than the other juniors and seniors, and if you think for a second that you're going to get away-"

"Can I see his test?" Genevieve asked, and took it without waiting for an answer, she spent less than five minutes scanning over the test and slammed it lightly on the table. Headmaster Charleston was taken aback when she looked up at him with a glare, "He didn't cheat,"

"And how do you know that?" He said.

"I had test key D, the people next to him had B and A, and he had C, which means the only person near him who had the same test as him was Paris Geller, and he scored higher than her, and you know how Paris is." She concluded, Tristan looked at her in awe.

"How do you know about the test system?" He shot at her.

"I created it! After Jade McKinsley got expelled... " She said, leaning over to pick up her bag, "Is there anything else you want to address?"

"I'm afraid that's all, you two are dismissed," He handed them a note to excuse them from class. As Tristan was about to leave, Genevieve pulled him back and looked at Headmaster Charleston with a waiting gaze, tapping her foot on the floor.

"Aren't you going to apologize to him?" She said.

"What?"

"You unfairly accused a student of corrupting their academic integrity, not to mention your opprobrious comments," She said, and oh how Tristan adored it when she used big words.