Field of Dreams: Year 1

Principal talks

Paige's POV:

As we stood up in front of the whole class, I held Liv's arm to keep her calm because I know how nervous she can get before exams, quizzes, presentations, and any kind of examination at school. She gave me a small but also very encouraging smile. She knew that I had gotten anxious too.

I looked up to glance Ava once more before we started the presentation. This time, she didn't look at me. With the small but frequent taps of her leg, her crossed hands, and her wandering gaze gave me the premonition that she was waiting for something. Or someone?

Not so long after we started with the presentation, me being first because I had done the definition of electromagnetism part, I saw something was off with the information and text on the slide. It was nothing like what I'd written a few days ago. It wasn't even the same as my notes! Without any second to react, the door of the room flew open. I turned and saw the principal, Ms. Harper, a woman all students, teachers, and staff had the respect of, walked into the classroom.

"Mr. Nicolas?" her silvery voice echoed around the room. "Could you come to my office for a second?" she expressed her intentions of coming to this particular classroom. "And may Ms. Davies and Lee join us in our little conversation, too?" she directed to us, and all of the sitting students in front of us were shifting their eyes between Ms. Harper and us, and vice versa.

Mr. Nicolas tilted slightly his head at the direction of the principal, telling us voicelessly to do what the headmaster had asked about. I still held Liv's hand, who had tightened her grip over mine. I did the same to calm her down and assure her everything was fine. It was probably some big misunderstanding.

I looked back and saw our Physics teacher walking right behind us, still with the same emotionless look on his face, but not stopping to walk for a single second. And there it was. In just a blink, I saw Ava over a little over Mr. Nicolas' shoulder, waving with an evil smirk on her face.

  ***

"Mr. Nicolas, understand," we found ourselves sitting on the chairs against Ms. Harper on her desk, our teacher walking from one chair to the other, repeating the process. "Ms. Davies and Ms. Lee have been reported to plagiarize," he stopped walking and put his two hands at the two backs of the chairs. "We checked the information from the project, and it turned out as copied from different sources," I looked at Liv. We knew we hadn't plagiarized anything. We even had read each other's notes a few times the day we did the project at Liv's place.

"May I know who accused my students of cheating?" Mr. Nicolas asked, trying to prove we were innocent.

"It was an anonymous email with a copy of the presentation attached to it," the principal explained. "But after verifying what they've told us, there will be consequences for the ladies," she then looked at us with a gaze that could read our thoughts. Liv suddenly put her hand in hoodie pocket to find the little sedatives bottle. She got out two of the small pills, and I gave her my water bottle I had taken in the last seconds in our classroom in case something like that happened.

"But that's not fair!" I found myself shouting against the headmaster's decision. "We haven't done anything wrong!" I saw Liv putting the two pills in her mouth and drinking the water afterwards. Ms. Harper apparently didn't know about the prescription of the school doctor.

"Do you have any proof to support your beliefs?" she insisted. I looked at her, not knowing what actually to present as my proof. I could feel Mr. Nicolas' eyes focused on me too. And then it sparked.

"Our notes!" I nearly shouted. The two adults looked at me with confused glances, and Liv's eyes got a knowing glow. "We've written everything that we were going to say. It was synchronized with the things that we had really written for our topic on the real presentation!" I explained. " I can run to the room and get them to prove you our innocence," I proposed. Ms. Harper looked at Mr. Nicolas, who nodded slightly. She then looked at me and gave me a sign to do what I had suggested. From that moment I couldn't feel the floor beneath my feet.

***

"Here are our notes," I said, placing two notebooks on the principal's desk. "And here are our last exams from Mr. Nicolas' class, which are checked, to prove it's our handwriting on the motes," I placed the two tests in front of her. I felt her scrutinizing gaze examining if I was telling the truth or not.

"Could you, girls, leave me and Mr. Nicolas to talk about the situation and wait for us outside?" she suddenly said, breaking the tense eye contact between us. I nodded and helped Liv to stand up, holding my water bottle in my left hand.

"I hope Ms. Harper understands we haven't done anything that Ava had framed us for," I said and felt a little movement at my right.

"Ava did that?" Liv looked up. I nodded once again. "Blake was right..." she told me, and I tightened my side hug to encourage her that everything was going to be okay.

***

"Olivia, Paige," I heard Mr. Nicolas' voice calling us by first name for the first time. "Everything is fine," he informed us. "Both me and Ms. Harper looked over the notes, the handwriting, and the information given in the presentation, and we are on the opinion that you haven't done anything of what that anonymous signal has told us about," he stopped talking. "Then, you two own me for taking you out of the situation," he smiled widely, his calmness surprising me.

"What can we do, so we don't get surprised by some unexpected bad grades that appeared in our record?" was the first thing Liv said with her body and soul at one place.

"Do you need someone with experience for your trainings?" he asked, and I looked at Liv, who was smiling as widely as him.

"Only if you could put up with us three?" Liv answered.

"You three?" he repeated with his eyebrows merging on his forehead. "Last time I checked, you were two."

"Paige joined us too," she tilted her head to me.

"Okay," he said, laughing. "I think I might do well in that," he laughed again, and Liv joined him too. I was left so confused by the whole situation.

A/N-Hey, so you may be asking yourself why would Mr. Nicolas want to help them with the trainings and stuff. Well, he may be very strict when it comes to Physics, but at the other time he is very cheerful, happy, and funny person that is full of jokes. I hope it makes sense.