Amara’s fingers curled briefly around the strap of her tote.
Then she relaxed them.
The voice on the phone did not respond immediately.
Madison interpreted the silence as permission to continue.
“She thinks because she gets financial aid, the school has to protect her from everything. She thinks the rules don’t apply to her. And when I tried to expose what she did, she got aggressive.”
“That’s not what happened,” Amara said.
Madison turned sharply.
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“You’re holding my phone.”
“Because you wouldn’t answer.”
“I answered.”
“You lied.”
“I didn’t.”
Madison stepped closer, lowering her voice as if the two of them were sharing a private joke.
“You should have just admitted it, Amara. You could have saved yourself all this embarrassment.”
Amara looked down at the torn examination pages.
Then she looked back at Madison.
“You tore up my test.”
Madison shrugged.
“It was already ruined.”
“You took it out of my folder.”
“You left it unattended.”
“You ripped it in front of everyone.”
Madison’s smile returned, brittle and sharp.
“Maybe you should have studied harder.”
A student near the crowd’s edge muttered, “That’s messed up.”
Chloe shot him a warning look.
Sloane kept recording.
Amara did not turn toward the student. She knew that one sympathetic voice could not undo what had happened, and she had no intention of letting Madison change the subject.
The caller spoke again.
“Amara, I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”
Madison’s face tightened.
“Actually, I think I should explain,” she said quickly. “Because I was there, and I saw everything.”
“No,” Amara replied. “You were there. That doesn’t mean you saw everything.”
Madison gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“Wow. You really think you’re clever.”
“I think you should give me my phone.”
The blonde girl looked at the gathering crowd, then at her two friends. She was accustomed to having an audience, but this one was no longer behaving as she expected. The laughter had faded. Several students had lowered their phones, and one boy had begun recording Madison rather than Amara.
Madison noticed.
Her cheeks flushed.
“Fine,” she snapped. “You want to make a scene? Let’s make a scene.”
She lifted the phone higher.
“Everyone should hear this. Amara Johnson, scholarship student, top of the class, perfect little academic miracle. Except she isn’t perfect, is she?”
Amara said nothing.
Madison continued, her voice growing louder.
“She got access to the advanced mathematics assessment before the rest of us. She knew what was on it. She copied the answers and handed in a paper that somehow earned the highest score in the entire grade.”
“That is false,” Amara said.
“Then explain why your answers matched the teacher’s solution?”
“Because I solved the problems.”
“Of course you did.”
Madison rolled her eyes dramatically.
“And when I asked her about it, she got defensive. So I checked her bag.”
Amara’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But the stillness in her face became something harder.
“You searched my bag?”
Madison shrugged again.