After Principal Towers lead a scowling Koh to her office, the front lawn exploded with gossip again. As Julian headed back to us, I noticed that he seemed quite distraught.

"What's wrong?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"It's… it's Koh. I can't believe that she would do something like that! Especially after we talked!" Julian exclaimed.

I was stunned. I hadn't really seen Koh and Julian interact much.

"About what?" I prodded.

"Well, I couldn't stand seeing the cheerleaders calling her a 'psycho rebel' when they discovered that she was the one who put itching powder all over their uniforms. I mean, they did kinda deserve it," Julian began.

No, they didn't, I scowled to myself. Can't she do that to Autumn instead?

"Everyone was talking about how much of a troublemaker she was and it reminded me of what Hope had gone through," Julian confided.

"I didn't want to see her suffer like my sister had, so I offered to help her rebuild her image here, and it seemed like people were becoming more accepting… and then this happened. I can't believe that she would do something like this when I went out of my way to help her!" Julian boomed.

I looked at Julian closely. He did seem angry… but even more than that, I could see the hurt in his eyes. He thought Koh had betrayed him.

"I can't believe it either," I replied. Before Julian could retort, I cut him off. "That's why we're going in."

"Huh?" Julian asked, a quizzical expression on his face.

"Follow me." I ordered. I nudged Mia. "Let's go."

And off we went in the direction of the Admin building.

"Hey, where are you going?" the cheerleader girl asked, batting her eyelashes at Julian.

"We're leaving." I gave her a You'll-be-deader-than-last-season's-handbag-if-you-fuck-with-me look. She quickly turned around and immersed herself in a conversation with a glee girl. It wasn't like she had a chance with Julian, anyway—the way he got mad at them for trash-talking Koh was proof of that.

At the admin building, the receptionists greeted me with warm, overtly saccharine greetings. I knew that they were only sucking up to me because they expected to be in with my father's company, but this time it would prove useful.

"Hello, Miss Elstead," I began, deliberately pronouncing her name wrong. This was how to tell if someone was a suck-up—if they didn't have the balls to correct you for that, then they almost certainly were one.

Miss Elstead only grinned in response. "What can I do for you?"

I gave my signature "Student of the Month" smile. "We have an important project," I started, gesturing at Julian and Mia. "It's for the town council, on innovative leaders in education." I emphasized the cheese, knowing that gullible adults absolutely ate up that bullshit. "And Mia here," I gave a sweet, caring smile, "desires greatly to interview Principal Towers about her excellence in pioneering visionary education." I put my hand on my heart. "Principal Towers has done so much for the school, we just wanted to thank her for her contributions."

"Oh—of course!" Miss Elstead looked rather taken aback. "But Principal Towers is busy with a student right now, so perhaps Miss Warren can interview her later?"

"Oh, what a shame," I made my eyes appear downcast and sorrowful. "The town council wished to have the project done before three p.m. If Principal Towers can't do so now, they would be greatly disappointed."

Miss Elstead nervously gripped her ballpoint pen. "I see." Her bulbous eyes widened and the crinkles on her forehead seemed to multiply. I waited three seconds, then I put the poor woman out of her misery.

"Mia, why don't you interview Principal Towers in the Admissions Office?" I widened my eyes. "It's empty, so it'll be perfect! And the student that she's seeing can just wait here in the office with you!"

"Yes, that can be done!" Miss Elstead replied, her flabby wrists shaking.

"Excellent!" I fake-chirped. "That's a great idea, Miss Elstead! What would I do without you?"

Miss Elstead beamed. Making her think that the idea was her own always worked. Some adults were just too stupid and too predictable for their own good.

"I'll go get Principal Towers! She'll be so happy for the interview!" Miss Elstead ran off towards her office. I stared at the cellulite that was ill-concealed by her knee-length skirt in disgust.

"Hey! What am I supposed to interview Principal Towers about?" Mia asked indignantly.

"You'll bullshit it, Mia. I'm sure you can come up with something. Hasn't your dad been interviewed various times before?" I replied.

"I guess," Mia consented. "But you'll still owe me one," she snapped.

I smirked to myself. I had already put a vintage Chanel purse on hold for her in case I needed a favor. After all, my policy was to always think three steps ahead of everyone else. Then, I turned to Julian.

"After Mia distracts Towers, we're going to search her room. You look through her filing cabinet, and I'll take her computer." I explained in a low voice. Julian nodded.

"Here we are!" Miss Elstead squeaked as she brought Principal Towers to Mia. "And you will sit right here, Miss Sunya. No running away under my watch!" She waggled her finger at Koh and turned around to talk to Principal Towers. Koh stared daggers at the back of her cheap red polyester sweater. Then she noticed Julian, flushed, and turned her gaze away from him. Hmm.

While the inane adults were distracted, Julian and I snuck through the hallway towards Principal Towers' office. Quickly, we rushed in and I locked the door. If we were caught, our alibi would be that we were waiting for Principal Towers since we had additional questions for the town council project.

While Julian searched the file drawers, I booted up Principal Towers' computer. Luckily, she had been dragged out of her office in Miss Elstead's haste, and her computer was left unlocked. No hacking would be required this time.

Principal Towers had mentioned an anonymous email, so I looked through her inbox for it. My eye caught an indecipherable jumble of letters and numbers, and I clicked on it.

Principal Towers,

Here is a video that you'll find is worth watching.

-Anonymous

I clicked on the video link. On it, a girl with long, wavy black hair like Koh's pulled down a fire alarm. The video was short and about the length of a Vine. Quickly, I took a tiny flash drive out of my Kelly handbag and copied the video and email to it. After ejecting the flash drive, I perused the rest of Principal Towers' emails and found nothing noteworthy. After making sure that everything was exactly the way Principal Towers had left it, I joined Julian in his search.

"Found anything?" I asked.

"Well, I've found Koh's file," he replied. He handed it to me. It was thick compared to the average student's and full of referrals and detention slips. I smirked; my files at my previous schools were just as bad. I looked at the most recent entries. Student nearly caused fire in rebel hangout; lighter confiscated. Student responsible for setting off school fire detectors due to smoke generated from lighter use, etc.

The evidence all pointed to Koh. In fact, it matched up perfectly… too perfectly. I knew a frame job when I saw one. And the fact that she had been framed before only served to prove that she had many enemies who desired to see her fall.

"I have an idea. Let's get out of here first," I said.

Julian and I quickly exited Principal Towers' office. I opened the back exit.

"Here," I pointed at the door. "It's easier to sneak out this way."

"And how do you know this?" Julian raised his eyebrows.

"Have you forgotten that I designed the blueprints for the school? And even if I didn't, I've been in enough administration buildings to have an idea." I snickered.

Fifteen minutes later, Julian and I met Mia in one of the jock hangouts. The basketball team was practicing some free throws while the cheerleading squad pretended to rehearse their new routine while actually not-so-subtly checking out the basketball players. I flipped the light switch off. The jocks shouted and the cheerleaders screamed. I pulled my flashlight out of my Kelly bag and waved it around, garnering everyone's attention.

"Show's over, guys," I announced. "The power's out, so you all will have to take it to the next hangout." I pointed my flashlight at the jock hangout next door. One by one, they left until Julian, Mia, and I were left alone. I locked the entrance door behind me and pulled out my flash drive.

"Julian, can I see your laptop?" I asked. Julian strode up the steps of the jock hangout and returned shortly with it. Quickly, I plugged the flash drive in.

"What's that?" Mia asked.

I pressed play on the video. This time, I took a closer look. It did look like Koh, but what was particular was that her back was turned to the camera. I only saw her hair… not her face.

"Omigosh. So Koh really did do it. How dare she? My freaking Jimmy Choos were stuck in the grass during the drill today because of her!" Mia growled.

I was about to reply to Mia, but then something in her comment reminded me of something. Wordlessly, I repeated the video.

Koh was wearing white sneakers.

I thought back to Principal Towers' confrontation with Koh today in the front lawn. She was wearing her usual combat boots. My eyes widened. The quality wasn't that good, but I could clearly tell that she wasn't wearing her black combat boots in the video.

"Mia… look at Koh's shoes," I hissed.

"So I can see her beat-up combat boots?" Mia snickered.

"Hey!" Julian cried. How come he's getting super defensive of Koh lately? I wondered.

As she glanced at the screen, her eyes grew big. "She's not wearing combat boots! What the heck? I swear, she was wearing them today when Towers went to collect her."

I looked pointedly at her.

"Oh! You mean… the person in the video isn't Koh?" Mia queried.

Julian quietly let out a sigh of relief.

"It isn't," I conceded. "But who is?" I observed the white sneakers again. "Who would want to frame Koh?"


Clue: There is a hint somewhere in my writings...