Chapter Sixteen - Cutting Class

Annabelle had been trying to put off going to school for as long as she could. She kept talking to Adrien for as long as she could the night before in an attempt to put off the morning and hope that he'd be too tired to drag her into school, but Ziggy caught on and told him to go home at 1am. Then she wasted time mindlessly scrolling on her phone until her kwami took it away and changed the password, saying that she could change it back after she went to school.

She still couldn't sleep. She probably only slept for two hours, maybe less. She was too anxious. She trusted Adrien wholeheartedly, but that still didn't change how she felt about Lila. She was still scared.

She was already awake when her alarm was going off and she waited a while before stopping it. Then she curled up in her bed and buried herself deeper into the covers.

"You have to go to school," Ziggy said bluntly. "I don't think Cat Noir was joking last night and he'd probably drag you there even if you were in your pyjamas."

Annabelle groaned. "I know. But I still don't want to."

Her dad walked in at that moment and Ziggy quickly hid somewhere he wouldn't see them. "Anna, are you feeling any better today?"

Annabelle sat up and smiled. "Yeah, I am. I think I'm gonna go to school today. If I start to feel worse again though, I'll probably just go home."

She felt Ziggy pinch the back if her neck hard, telling her that wasn't going to happen.

Her dad smiled. "That's good. Call me when you get home, even if you don't go home early." He paused. "I might not be able to answer it though, but just leave a voicemail. Anyway, I've got to go to work now, so I'll see you later."

She frowned. "Already?" It was 7am and when he first started he had to go in at 9am. He was getting home later and later each night as well.

"Yeah, there's a big project going on and they need me to be in early because I'm leading it. I'll probably be home late as well, so don't wait for me to eat in the evening."

She sighed. "Ok, bye."

Her dad waved and left the room, closing the door behind him. He looked exhausted. She knew that they moved because his new job was a big improvement from his old one, but she'd barely seen him the whole time they'd been in France. He'd leave when she woke up and get back when she was asleep on weekdays and then he'd stay in bed all day at the weekend. Annabelle was starting to doubt whether they should've moved or not.

"Now that you've said you're going to school, get up and actually go to school," Ziggy said as soon as her dad left the room.

Annabelle sighed. "But I don't really want to."

Her kwami glared back at her. "Fine. I'll go tell Plagg that Adrien's gonna have to drag you-"

She didn't let them finish their sentence as she leaped out of bed. "I'm up, ok. I'm up."

Annabelle was going as slowly as she possibly could, from having an extra long shower to eating her cereal so slowly that it went soggy and making her five minute walk take closer to fifteen. Even with all her procrastination, she still turned up on time with ten minutes before her first class.

Adrien was waiting for her outside the school steps and smiled when he saw Annabelle walking towards him. She glared at him, but he didn't stop smiling.

"Good thing I don't have to drag you in today," he said.

"Shut up."

He laughed and walked in with her. She saw Lila as soon as she stepped in and froze. She wanted to run but couldn't move. Then Lila noticed her and glared right through her. When she saw Annabelle's reaction, she smiled. Adrien noticed and squeezed Annabelle's shoulder and she snapped out of it.

"Annabelle, it's ok. Don't worry. She isn't going to do anything," he said.

She breathed in deeply and breathed out. "Did you talk to her?"

He nodded, then sighed. "I only told her about what happened in school, not about," he turned his voice to a whisper, "Black Sheep and she said she wouldn't do anything, but..." he trailed off.

"What?" She asked, looking worried.

He sighed again. "It's hard to tell if she's being genuine or not. Let's hope she is."

She nodded and he smiled. Then Annabelle realised that Adrien's hand was still on her shoulder and felt herself blushing. She pushed his hand off her.

"Well I'm gonna go speak to Ivan, Alix and Mylenne now," she said, trying to be nonchalant and failing miserably.

She walked away quickly with her head down. What is wrong with me? She kept asking herself, but felt like she already knew the answer.

Asking to swap seats with Mylenne was easy enough. She told them that she found it hard to see the board sometimes, which wasn't a complete lie. She had needed glasses in the past, but after she lost them her optician told her that she was fine without them since her prescription wasn't too wrong in the first place. But she was starting to think that she needed them again because her eyes had started hurting again. She was planning to get her eyes tested with her dad, but he was always either too busy or too tired to go.

Mylenne was perfectly fine with sitting next to Ivan and had wanted to for a while, but didn't want Alix to be left alone, so Annabelle's suggestion had actually worked out for the best. They would all talk to Miss Bustier at the start of class to check that it was ok, but they doubted she'd find a problem with it.

There were only a few minutes before the bell rang and class started. Annabelle was starting to panic. What if Miss Bustier didn't let her move seats? What if Lila asked to swap seats with Max or Kim so she would still be behind her? What if Lila wasn't being genuine with Adrien and wasn't going to leave her alone?

Adrien noticed her walking towards the locker room and remembered the time she spent an entire lesson inside her own locker. He quickly caught up to her and grabbed her arm, causing her to yelp.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

Annabelle started at him for a while. He could tell she was about to make up an excuse. "The toilet, where else? Tell Miss Bustier I might be late."

He didn't believe that she was actually going to come back to class so he spoke to Ziggy. "Make sure she doesn't spend the whole lesson in her locker again."

Annabelle blushed, feeling embarrassed as soon as that memory resurfaced.

"I'll drag her to class if I have to," Ziggy said.

Annabelle glared at both of them and sighed. "I'll definitely turn up. I promise," she lied.

Adrien sighed, believing her. "Fine. I'll tell Miss Bustier where you are."

Annabelle quickly headed in the opposite direction to everyone else and into the locker room. What did it matter if she didn't turn up to class? It's not like Adrien or Ziggy could do anything. Ziggy was the size of her thumb and Adrien couldn't go into the girls toilets.

Marinette couldn't stop thinking about how Cat Noir had been to see Annabelle twice now. She knew something had to be going on and she felt the same suspicion when she saw her hanging out with Adrien.

It was difficult to convince herself that it wasn't just her jealousy telling her to question it, but within a few days they had become inseparable. They were always together whenever she saw either of them and she didn't even remember seeing Adrien hang out with Nino this much.

Yesterday when at the end of the day, Marinette overheard Adrien saying to someone that he would check on Annabelle after school and offered to give her his notes from class two days in a row, which she found strange. His father would never let him go round someone's house normally, but she especially couldn't imagine it happening if they were ill and Adrien could catch it. Also Marinette knew he had his fencing and Chinese lessons yesterday and wouldn't have the time to go round Annabelle's. But he seemed so certain when he said it.

Marinette felt like these two things were connected somehow, but she couldn't work out how. Adrien didn't have any connection to Cat Noir. It didn't make any sense.

Annabelle hadn't left her toilet cubicle for five minutes now. She was sitting against the door on her phone, trying to ignore Ziggy telling her to go class.

"Everyone knows you're in today. You can't stay in here forever," they said.

"I'll just tell them I went to the infirmary because I wasn't feeling great," she replied bluntly.

Ziggy rolled their eyes and sighed. "I don't get it. You won't even be sitting in front of her anymore. What's the problem?"

Annabelle looked at her kwami directly. "That doesn't solve everything. I'm still scared of her." She started to breathe heavily, not breaking eye contact for a while before she turned her head away and started at the floor. "And anyway, you heard Adrien. It's impossible to tell whether she's being genuine or not. Plus she'll know the reason I change seats was because of her." She sighed.

Ziggy didn't know what to say. They didn't realise how much Lila had scared her. They'd never seen her look so deflated. From what they had seen, Annabelle was usually more optimistic than this. They didn't know what to do.

"You can't keep skipping classes. You're going to have to go at some point," they said, flying down to their owner's shoulder.

She sighed. "I know. I just need to calm down and then I'll go. Just give me five more minutes."

"Ok," Ziggy smiled. "But after that I'm dragging you to class myself."

Annabelle snorted. "What are you gonna do? You're the size of my thumb."

"I'm actually closer to the size of your whole hand."

"Wow, that really makes a difference."

The two of them talked until the second the five minutes was up and Ziggy told her to go back to class. Even though she still didn't want to, she left the cubicle and left the toilets. She was going to go to class, but then she bumped into Luka who was lying on the bench in the locker room humming to himself. He stopped when he heard her approaching, thinking a teacher had caught him, but smiled when he saw who it was. Annabelle blushed slightly.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" He asked, his smile changing to a smirk.

"I could say the same to you," she quipped. She could hear Ziggy telling her to go to class, but ignored them.

"I have physics and Miss Mendeleev doesn't particularly like me and I don't particularly like her or physics, so I decided to bunk off. What about you?"

"Oh, um... I..." Annabelle wasn't sure whether to tell him the truth or not. "I'm just trying to avoid someone."

Luka looked worried. "Who? Is something wrong?"

"It doesn't matter. It's nothing. I'm just overreacting about something," she said, deciding he probably didn't want to know anyway.

But his response told her otherwise. "You can tell me. I promise I won't tell anyone." He placed a hand on her shoulder, making her blush deepen and she looked down.

"I..." She began, but couldn't finished. She didn't really want to talk about it.

"It's ok. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I'll be willing to listen if you are."

She looked up and met his sincere eyes. He gave her a comforting smile, which she returned with a weaker one.

"Thanks, Luka. I appreciate it."

"No problem." He patted her shoulder before returning his hand to his side. "I might not know exactly what's going on, but I can show you somewhere to hide since you're trying to avoid someone."

"Really?"

He nodded and started to head out of the locker room. Annabelle was about to follow him when she heard Ziggy hiss into her ear:

"Go to class."

She paused and sighed. "Actually, I should probably go back to class." Even if she meant it as a lie when she said it, she did still promise Adrien and Ziggy.

Luka frowned. "Well, if you have to." Then he thought for a moment and smiled. "But you've already missed," he looked at the clock on the wall, "15 minutes. What's another 45?"

Annabelle looked at him in disbelief and smiled. "I didn't realise before, but you can be a terrible influence when you want to be."

He laughed. "Juleka's told me something similar before."

Luka took Annabelle to the music department, which was currently empty. There weren't any classes going on and there wasn't any sign of a teacher either.

"That's weird," Luka said, looking around. "Normally she's here."

"Who?" Annabelle asked.

"Miss Vidal, the music teacher. It doesn't matter though, the practice rooms should be unlocked." He walked towards the music store cupboard and took out his guitar.

"Isn't it better for her not to be here? Aren't we gonna get caught."

He smirked. "Nah, she lets me stay here whenever I want. I got kicked out a few times, but normally it's ok." He opened the door to the last practice room in the corridor and held it open for Annabelle.

The room was quite small with only a piano, music stand and a chair in it. She sat down on the chair in the corner while Luka took the piano stall and began to take his guitar out.

"If I remember correctly, you told me you played the cello, right?" He asked.

She was surprised he remembered. She couldn't help but feel happy about that. "Yeah, I've been playing since I was about seven, I think."

He chuckled to himself. "I'm surprised you'd be big enough to play a cello that young."

She smiled. "Well, it's not too hard if you have a high enough stool. But I was about the size of my first cello when I started playing. What about you? When did you start playing the guitar?"

He looked thoughtful and smiled. "I can't remember. I don't think I've ever not played the guitar." They laughed. "Didn't you say that you could play the guitar?"

She looked down, slightly embarrassed and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Only a little bit and I'm not that good."

"I'm sure that's not true. Show me what you can play." He handed her the guitar and she looked at him like he was crazy.

"Are you sure? I can only play two songs."

He smiled. "Go ahead."

Reluctantly she took the guitar and started to play a basic chord progression she learned a while ago. Occasionally her fingers would slip, causing her to get even more embarrassed.

I bet he's judging me, she thought to herself as she finished. But to her surprise, when she looked up at him he was just smiling. It didn't even seem like he was trying to contain any laughter. It seemed like he actually enjoyed it.

"I told you I'm not that good." She tucked some hair behind her ear again and handed him his guitar back.

"It's fine. We all have to start somewhere and I kinda liked it."

She blushed.

"Would you ever consider joining my band?" He asked.

Annabelle remembered hearing them play when she first met Luka a few weeks ago. She couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.

"There's no way you'd get me to play guitar and I doubt you'd ever really need a cello, so probably not," she said.

"Well if we ever write a song that sounds like it would need a cello part I'll let you know."

She blushed even more.

Luka looked pensive for a moment as he looked at Annabelle. "It's seemed like you've had something like this in your heart for a while."

Wait, what? What the hell does that mean? She thought to herself before he started to play something. It wasn't quite sad, but felt melancholic and sounded slightly discordant. It didn't make much sense to her, but she knew exactly what he meant.

He stopped and looked at her. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong? You still don't have to if you don't want to."

She wasn't too keen about talking about Lila again, but she'd never been serenaded with her own feelings before and felt like she could trust him. She sighed and told him everything, obviously leaving out the parts about her being a superhero. The whole time she was telling him she looked at the ground, avoiding looking him in the eye. After she told him, she was still looking at the ground, but looked up as soon as he said something.

"I can understand why you'd want to avoid her, but I don't think you should keep skipping class to do it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that a bit hypocritical, given what we're doing right now?"

He laughed. "I'm failing physics anyway, might as well fail in style."

Annabelle started laughing as well, which made Luka smile as she had seemed to cheer up slightly.

"What I mean is that the more you keep avoiding her, the worse things are going to seem. You're building it up in your head, when in reality it probably isn't as bad as it seems."

She thought about it for a moment. All Lila had been doing was glare at her and when she got scared the first time, Lila was only holding a pen. Even if she was plotting her revenge, there wasn't much she could really do.

"It's ok if you're still scared of her though. I don't really like her anyway," Luka said.

"Really? Everyone seems to be in love with her, except for Marinette and Adrien."

He shrugged. "She's kind of annoying."

She smiled. "Thanks, Luka."

He smiled back. "It's ok. Do you want to head back to class now?"

She looked at her watch. "Well, we've already missed half an hour, what's another one."