Two is Company (House of Anubis)

Chapter 16: Vera Devenish v. Mara Jaffray (2012)

Apparently, the answer was a lot of damage.

"Vera Devenish - A Liar Exposed!" was splashed across the school website, and the atmosphere in the house was tense beyond belief. Vera herself was nowhere to be found that morning, and talk of the public trial Victor had insisted on was all anyone could talk about.

"Mara," Kira breathed, reading over the article for probably the hundredth time the next morning at breakfast, "you actually posted it?"

"Posted it?" Fabian replied, his voice steeped in concern. "Mara, I can't believe you wrote it to begin with."

"Wrote what?" Amber asked, out of the loop, and Fabian passed off his phone to her so she could read it too.

"What if they shut down the website over this?" Fabian asked, and Eddie rolled his eyes.

"Chill, man," he snapped, coming to Mara's defense. "The story was off the chain; it had to come out!"

Mara looked at the rest of her housemates incredulously, hurt by their lack of support, and while Kira thought the whole thing had been a terrible idea, she wasn't going to let her best friend think she stood alone. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently.

"Shocked face!" Amber exclaimed once she'd finished skimming the piece. "Mara, you destroyed her."

Mara shook off Kira's arm and stood up, slamming her palms down on the table. "I stand by everything I wrote, and I'm going to prove it."

Eddie grinned and pumped the air with his fist. "You go, girl!" he cheered, and Kira shot him a withering look.

Mara turned to leave but was frozen under Victor's furious stare as he strode into the room. "There is to be a hearing today," he said, boiling rage just under the surface, "to ascertain the legitimacy or otherwise of a story which appeared on the school website. I'm instructing all Anubis House students to attend and hear the truth."

He and Mara held each other's gaze, unwavering for several moments, but it was enough to cow the rest of them. They shrunk away until finally, Victor turned and breezed off.

"Sorry, Mara," Amber murmured, rubbing her friend's arm gently.

"Why a hearing, anyway?" Eddie asked.

"We're all behind you," Kira reassured her, prompting nods from around the table. "It'll be okay."

—

Patricia, Joy, and Kira sat together at the hearing, with Nina, Fabian, and Amber directly behind them. Jerome and Alfie were on the opposite side of the room, but for all his claims about standing by mara, Eddie was nowhere in sight. The student lounge had gone through yet another transformation that term, and with several folding tables pushed together in a half-circle, it did resemble a courtroom of sorts.

Mr. Sweet sat front and center, looking supremely uncomfortable, and not for the first time since the trial had been announced Kira wondered why her father was holding one at all. Usually, these sorts of things were dealt with privately, weren't they? And if it was truly all lies, then Mara would just have to print a retraction.

Maybe they do things differently in England, she mused, quietly gnawing at the inside of her cheek.

Mr. Sweet let the gavel fall, and a hush fell over the room as people found their seats. The trial was about to begin.

"This hearing has been called to determine the accuracy of an article, written by Mara Jaffray, about Vera Devenish. We shall begin momentarily," he announced.