The Thief in the Treehouse - Short Story

The Poster

In what felt like just a few days, the due date of the poster rolled around. The art classroom filled with anticipation and nervousness while every group sat at their respective tables with their poster in hand. Which group would bestow the poster to represent their homeroom? They discussed while Ms. Mairose was out of the room.

"I bet it will be our group! I used expensive materials to color!" Livia from Group Three argued.

"It's not about how expensive the materials are, it's how you use them!" Caleb replied with disgust.

"Says the kid from Group Two! Their project is probably the worst!" Peter from Group Six pointed out, scowling at Aisling.

Caleb began to regret saying anything.

The classroom began to rudely whisper around, suffocating the room with twisting lies.

"Just you wait!" Roxy growled defensively. "Aisling's the best, y'all are just lying rumor spreaders!"

Before anyone else could argue, Ms. Mairose came into the room. There was only silence, but the silence sounded horrible with the startled and accused emotions plastered on every student.

"I apologize for keeping you waiting, I was having a talk with your teacher about the competition! Speaking of, let's have one person from each group bring their poster up to me to present one by one!" Ms. Mairose directed with a cheery smile.

Caleb offered to his group to bring the poster up to the front table.

"Yes, please! I can't stand going up in front of everyone!" Leah admitted, her hands shaking. What if another group did way better than us? What if we do fail? she thought.

As if to read her mind, Aisling said, "We won't fail this, I promise. Even if someone else did better, that doesn't destroy the fact that we did our best and had fun while doing it!"

Leah smiled. "You're right."

Caleb came back to the table. His eye was twitching, something it always did when he was nervous. He took a few deep breaths as he sat down and exhaled, "I'm so scared right now, you have no idea!"

"It'll be okay," said Roxy reassuringly.

"I hope so," Caleb answered.

"I will pin each poster to the bulletin board one by one to show them to you guys. You may move to get a better view, but please do not obstruct the view of anyone else. I will start with Group One's! Let's see how they did!" Ms. Mairose said this as she picked up the large poster. It was hard to believe that it had been entirely blank before, but it was now colorful, featuring a drawing of Mr. Raven and the words, Best Teacher above him. Group Two had to admit, it looked amazing, which worried them.

Then, it was Group Two's turn. Ms. Mairose picked up their poster as each student in the group held their breath, afraid something might happen.

Something did happen.

"What's this?" Ms. Mairose asked, her eyes dancing across the back of the poster, skimming what Leah had written in neat handwriting. "Note to the class, and to all of those who spread lies? What is this, Group Two?"

"May you read it to the class?" Roxy asked.

Ms. Mairose looked astounded. "Why, yes, I guess I will," she cleared her throat and began, "Ever since the groups were announced, Caleb and Roxy and I have been so worried about what Aisling would do to our poster. We heard from many people that she always sabotaged projects like this one and managed to manipulate the blame on the one who'd accused her. Well, it turns out, that isn't true.