"Faceless Future" Book 2 of "Secrets Unraveled" Trilogy |COMPLETED|

Chpt 33: Pondering a Partner Mystery and a Supervillain's Plans.

The bell signaling the end of class rang and the students all headed out of the classroom.

"Go ahead, Marinette," said Adrien as she came to stand by him, "I'll catch up in a minute. I just have a quick question for Ms. Bustier."

Marinette gave him a curious look, but joined Rose and Juleka as they walked toward the door talking about Kitty Section's next rehearsal.

Ms. Bustier was collecting some papers together when Adrien approached her.

"Hi, Adrien, did you have a question about the assignment?"

"No, actually, I have a weird question. Just something I was thinking about."

She nodded for him to ask.

"This past year you only paired me up with Marinette once for partner projects. I was just wondering why. Did you think we wouldn't make good partners?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.

Ms. Bustier laughed lightly. "No, Adrien, that wasn't it at all. Once you established yourself in the classroom, it became clear that you were one of the best students in the class. I try not to pair the best students together as it looks to some of the other students as too great of an advantage. Since Marinette is also one of my best students, I never put the two of you together."

"But, then you did. Why?" asked Adrien. "I'm not complaining, of course!" he added quickly.

"Actually, that was a mistake," she said in a matter of fact way as she put her papers in a drawer.

"A mistake? What do you mean?"

"I remember it because I've never had something like that happen before. I had made up the list the night before and had paired you with . . . well, it doesn't really matter. I started reading off the partners automatically without really registering what I was saying and I read your name with Marinette's. It was written right on the paper, though I didn't write it. But, once I read it, I felt I couldn't change it, so you and Marinette were paired. There was at least one other partner pair I didn't do, either. I haven't thought about it since, but it was very strange. Neither of you made the changes, did you?" she asked, knowing that Adrien and Marinette were now in a relationship.  Maybe one of them did it to get closer to the other?

"No, neither of us did it. I wonder why someone would go out of their way to pair us for a partner project." He paused as something occurred to him.  "Or maybe, we got paired by chance as someone else wanted one of our partners?"

"That's an interesting thought, Adrien. Hmm . . . Is there a reason you were wondering about it now?"

"I guess I was thinking recently about how lucky I am to be in a relationship with Marinette now and that, while I am certain we would have gotten to know each other eventually, it was a lot easier when we were partners who spent a lot of time together."

"That's really sweet, Adrien! You better hurry off to your next class now, though!"

"Thanks, Ms. Bustier!"

Ms. Bustier searched through her notebook for that project's partner list, wondering again about what had happened. She scanned the list and found the three partner groups that had been changed. Marinette had originally been paired with Max, who was a very good student in Science and Math, but sometimes struggled in her class due to lack of interest in the topics. Lila had been paired with Kim. And, Adrien had been paired with Myléne. In the final groups, there were Adrien and Marinette, Myléne and Kim - the poor girl had struggled getting Kim to do his part, and Lila and Max.

She shook her head. She didn't know why anyone would have gone out of their way to change these groups. "Oh, well!" she said, closing the notebook. She would probably never know.