The First Meeting
The meeting was in a random classroom. There were several experts who introduced themselves quickly and they took turns explaining why they were there. It was easy to follow for Marinette who was at the preparation meetings while Adrien was glad he read preparatory documents.
"Teenagers are sometimes ruled by hormones." A young man who asked to be called Jean said, the word sometimes was stressed in a way that meant sometimes not.
"Read it as the whole time." Another man, his name was Philippe, added.
Everyone laughed. It was an easy atmosphere for the heavy subjects they were about to cover.
"We are here to teach you how to define which behaviour is appropriate and what should be sanctioned." A woman named Camille spoke.
"We know that sometimes you do not know what is appropriate yourself." Philippe noted.
"You have learned what is right and wrong at home."Jean started. "Unfortunately, that is not always the truth."
"You follow what you saw on TV or on the internet and think that is okay." Camille continued.
"You may have followed the examples of your peers." Philippe followed.
"It might also depend with whom you interact and other circumstances." Camille added.
"It is complicated. But we plan to make it easier for you." Philippe stressed the word complicated.
"Basically, everything that makes you uncomfortable and is not a part of the school curriculum, is not acceptable." Jean summarized. He made sure to stress the words ' and is not a part of the school curriculum', obviously there were some excuses invented in the past.
"Someone might call you sensitive, but you have the right to be so." Camille added. "You have the right to say no." She stressed the word no and raised her index finger.
"On the other hand, you might be touchy and that is okay only as long as the other person is okay with it." Jean spoke and hugged his two colleagues as an example.
It was an exercised act and it was finished quickly. Then they moved on to read the short explanations and scripts written by the students that they distributed between themselves so that each expert had a few scripts to read.
Principal Damocles gave a short speech, because that was what school principals did on each occasion, and this particular one was no exception, while the experts read the first sets of explanations and the scripts.
Later the experts took turns and explained why some example was good or bad while the others were reading further material supplied by the students. It was obvious that this meeting was rushed and a lot more time would be needed to do this properly, but they did what they could in the short time they had. Then it was the turn for the examples written by Marinette and Adrien. Camille read Adrien's example and raised her eyebrows.
"These both depict a girl going after a boy?" She asked quietly. Adrien and Marinette nodded. "That is definitely a neglected problem. Excellent work. These are quite short, you might want to add another one if you want."
"We had an idea but it is quite long." Marinette replied.
"What is it, briefly" The woman asked.
"Well sometimes you are comfortable with certain behaviour in certain setting, but not in school, or in class." Marinette explained.
"That would be difficult. You can talk about that in the presentation. And you teenagers do not often care where you are." The woman sighed. "We should stick to the examples that are related to school."
Then the woman glanced at the boy, his name on the paper and there was a glint of recognition in her eyes.
"I have a few more questions about this, but you might prefer to do this after the meeting." Camille concluded with a significant note in her tone that suggested to the teens that was exactly what they were expected to do.
Then it was turn for Jean, who read Marinette's script. He was reading and did not notice that it was his turn. Camille nudged him in the elbow and winked to the students.
"I am touching my colleague, see? And that is okay because we agreed to this before. It does not mean that it is okay for anyone else." She spoke as she waited for Jean to finish reading.
"I am sorry, this was written by Marinette." He read from the paper. "I think this is an excellent example and you should go for it but I want to talk to you after the meeting too." Then the man passed the paper to his colleague and pointed for the man to read.
They finished checking the ideas one by one. Some students were rather energetic, others were more shy. More than a few examples were rather out of the subject, totally exaggerated examples that would require serious criminal charges or a copied scene from a film.
For an unknown reason, principal Damocles was satisfied that his students managed to find so many examples of bullying and sexual harassment in their school life. That had earned him a few odd looks.
The students who gave poor examples had to remember appropriate events from their school life right there on the spot and it turned out that one of the students who was chosen to perform was in fact a bully.
That surprised both the student and the school principal. The student was explaining why he thought it was okay, but with each reason he listed, he was met with the same answer 'It is still wrong'.
"We are really glad you proposed to use this new formula, we decided to try it in few other schools." The lady praised the students and principal Damocles and sent the students away as well as the school principal as she promised they would meet principle Damocles in his office.
Adrien chose to stay by Marinette's side for mutual moral support. By the end of the meeting, Marinette's paper had passed the whole group of experts, while the woman kept Adrien's paper in her hands.
"I want to go first." Camille spoke authoritatively. "The events described here happened to you?" She looked at Adrien.
The boy nodded.
"Have you reported any of them?" The woman asked as if she already knew the answer.
Adrien waved his head.
"I can't." He admitted.
The woman stared at him with her eyes wide open.
"Would you elaborate on that?" Camille said gently. "If it is not too awkward for you to say it right now." She added for good measure.
"First of all, I did not know until yesterday that this would qualify as such. But that is not all." Adrien took a deep breath. "If I report I was sexually harassed in school, my father will pull me out of it and I will be homeschooled again." He stated simply.
The present adults stared at the boy.
"So you can't tell your parents nor file a report to school about this?" The woman asked to verify if she understood the situation correctly.
"No and, you see, one of the girls, she is my childhood friend and ..." Adrien frowned, how could he possibly explain Chloe without naming her.
"The fact that she is your friend and keeps doing this although it makes you feel bad is only making it worse." Camille continued.
"Yes, I, um, Marinette and me, we hope that if we show this as an example of bad behaviour in front of the girls who did this, then they would stop doing it." Adrien explained their logic.
"Well, that is an excellent idea. Please let me know if it works. We will have a wrap up meeting some time next week. And you can send me an e-mail." The woman concluded and offered the floor to her colleague.
"I am referring to the act titled 'bathroom incident'. This event actually happened?" The man stated, it did not even sound like a question.
Marinette nodded.
"To you." He stared at the girl.
She nodded again.
"You are scaring her Jean." The woman smiled. "We can tell it was real, there are too many details of the other girl and almost nothing about your reaction."
"Who is acting the bully?" Jean asked.
Adrien raised his hand.
"Are you sure you can go through that again?" The lady asked Marinette gently.
"Yes." Marinette nodded, she was a face of determination, save her eyes who revealed fear.
"We tried yesterday, she can." Adrien confirmed but there was that nagging feeling as he remembered how she retreated before him when he impersonated Lila.
"Have you reported on this girl?" The man looked with his eyes wide open.
Marinette waved her head. "Nobody would believe me, it was my word against hers. And she claims I am the bully." She spoke tall and brave but her voice was shaking.
"The same girl got her expelled, temporarily, about a month ago." Adrien cut in and even leaned forward as if he wanted to protect Marinette.
The move made few of the adults to assume and then quickly hide an amused expression from their faces.
"You were expelled?" Camille asked with a raised eyebrow.
"How did you come back to school?" Philippe crossed his arms.
"Um, it's complicated." Marinette muttered.
"Why don't you tell me all about it?" Jean said and took a seat.
Marinette stared at her hands.
"Tell them, Marinette, you have nothing to be ashamed for." Adrien nudged the girl.
Marinette took a deep breath.
"I can tell you, I was there … most of the time." The boy offered and started to talk quickly in brief notes. When he told it, it did not sound like Marinette did anything wrong.
So Marinette continued. They heard the whole story. About the lies, the exam, the necklace, the fall, She kept herself calm and composed, but her voice was trembling, a tear escaped her eye when Adrien explained what he did and then she finally revealed what lie Lila used to return her to school.
Most of the adults were taking notes. There was a long moment of silence and several significant looks exchanged between different adults in the room. Marinette watched for a violet butterfly.
"That proposal of yours about a place for everything, does that have anything to do with the fact that Adrien is a model?" The lady asked quietly.
"Um, perhaps yes, you see, just because I am a model and have to suffer people touching me for my work it does not mean anyone can touch me as they please." Adrien stated calmly. That was bothering him ever since he read the list of items that could be covered.
Marinette wondered how her idea of 'flirting during an akuma fight is not good, while it is acceptable otherwise' became Adrien's modelling issue. She wanted to help the boy so she decided to play along. Besides, there was no way that Chat would ever get the message just because of their small performance in the classroom. He would probably never know.
"Have you ever been akumatized?" Philippe asked casually.
Both teens waved their heads.
"But your class has … the highest percentage in this school." The man raised his eyebrows.
"I guess we are the last two left." Marinette shrugged.
"But Marinette was almost akumatized, twice." Adrien added. "In both examples of a bully, an akuma butterfly came after the victim. The first one is Evilustrator. The second one went after Marinette but she calmed down."
"This is useful stuff." Camille was making notes on her tablet.
"I think we got ourselves more than we bargained for." Jean said as he got back to his feet.
"I would advise you not to practice the acts too much if it makes you feel bad, we do not want you akumatized." Camille told them with a sad smile.
They left the meeting with mixed feelings. Marinette was obviously not okay after she told the story and Adrien did not want to send her home alone.
"I know they said not to practice, but I have more than one hour free now, so how about writing homework together or playing games." He offered.
"Playing games, my room." She replied quickly. That was exactly what she needed, company and distraction. She forgot to panic and overthink about having the boy she had a crush on in her room.