Talented Me! 26

"Of course there is!" Gina shouted. Her voice rang in the room and everyone turned their attention to them. Curious eyes rest upon their drama.

"Young lady, I hope you do realize you just raised your voice at a teacher. For that, I'll have to give you a dem-"

"What's going on here?" Behind them, someone asked. Avina turned her head and saw it was Mr. Greene.

"Good morning, Mr. Greene," the teacher greeted. "I was discussing some matter with these students, but one of them raised their voice at me, and I was just about to-"

Again, he was interrupted. "What matter?"

Gina turned her attention towards Mr. Greene. At least he will help Wilona!

"There's pictures on the bulletin board calling Wilona names! I think it's the same people who bullied Wilona before."

Mr. Greene wrinkled his brows at Gina's words. "Indeed. That is quite troubling."

He turned his head towards the other teacher, "Have you thought of a plan to catch the culprit? The surveillance footage?"

"Well, you see, I was telling the girls to just take down the pictures," he cleared his throat. "After all, it's minor trifles."

Mr. Greene's brows wrinkled even further at his comment. "How can you say such a thing? It's the well-being of our students. We have to help them."

Placing his hands on their shoulders, he said, "I'll take it from here. I know you're busy grading the midterm papers."

Then, he signaled towards Wilona and Gina. "Come along. We're going to the surveillance room."

Gina and Wilona turned towards the flabbergasted teacher and bid goodbye. He didn't expect them to leave just like that! They completely ignored him!

"See! I knew someone would help us," Gina told Wilona. "Should have told them even sooner."

Wilona nodded and smiled at Gina. She looked at the back of Mr. Greene and felt he wasn't so bad. He may have forced her to be in the gardening club, but he helped her.

Opening the door to the room, Mr. Greene ushered the girls in. The people inside constantly monitoring the school looked back confused but moved away for the three of them to view the monitors.

"Let's rewind a bit." Mr. Greene clicked the mouse and slowly the footage rewinded until last night.

'Host! I found it! The girl deleted the chat, but she had pictures saved!' 5025 shouted. It took a bit of time to find because they didn't have a monitor of her, but 5025 simply hacked into her phone. Supersystem spy! It pulled out the picture to show Avina.

"I'm sorry to say, Wilona, but it seems the culprit hid their faces well," Mr. Greene sighed. In the minutes of the culprit placing the pictures, their faces were hidden with a mask making their features indistinguishable. He wanted to help Wilona, even by just a bit, but it seems it was all for naught.

"There has to be something!" Gina couldn't believe it! They came this far, and soon, they'd catch the culprit, and no one would bully Wilona anymore.

"Do you have any guesses who it could be?" Gina turned to Wilona. "We can interrogate them, or have the teachers do so."

Avina had all the tools she needed to bust this scheme, so she did not need to stall anymore. (Although it definitely wasn't as great as her previous stalling…) It was fine if they didn't see her face, after all, she had chat records and a face to match.

"I do have a guess… When I was in the lunchroom and once in the hallways, there was this girl who kept coming up to me and calling me all sorts of names," Wilona said. "The words used on the pictures are similar to the names she called me."

"Do you know their name?" Mr. Greene asked. Maybe this case was still solvable.

'Quick, 5025! Give me her name!'

'Rebecca! Her name is Rebecca Yelt!!'

"I think her name was Rebecca," Wilona answered.

"Rebecca," Mr. Greene said the name going through his mind who it could be. "Rebecca Yelt?"

Wilona nodded.

"Then you girls go back to class. I'll take care of this," Mr. Greene nodded and said. They did not need to go any further in this case; the teachers will handle it from here.

"And Wilona, come take a look at the greenhouse sometime. Some new flowers have bloomed." Mr. Greene smiled at Wilona. He was still looking forward to Wilona visiting.

"That's right! You're the supervisor for the gardening club," Gina said. "Some of my friends and I are going to join it too."

"For Wilona I presume? Then, I open my club doors to you," Mr. Greene said.

"Great!" Gina looked at Wilona. "Let's go to class and tell the others!"

The day passed by just like that. There were more stares and whispers, but this time Avina knew that it would come to an end. She already had 5025 import the text messages and saved them in a file. In case Rebecca deleted them, she could have 5025 import them back into the phone or just show them herself.

During lunch break, Avina took the time to pull out the business card from Graham. She flipped the thin card back and forth before settling down at a chair nearby. Opening up her phone, Avina dialed the number. A dial tone sounded and in just 3 seconds, a voice was heard.

"Hello?"

"I'm Wilona," she said. "You told me to call you if I was bullied again."

"Yes, yes. So, what happened?"

Avina recounted the events of the morning and brought details from the other ones too. The other side listened patiently at each part and only lowly hummed once she was finished.

"Have you caught the culprit? Has Rebecca been punished?" Graham asked. He sounded urgent and anxious.

"Not yet. They still need to check for evidence," Avina explained.

"Call me again when they do catch her, or if they couldn't," Graham told her.

"What if she's not the one?"

"She might not be, but she's related," Graham said. Telling her again on what to do, Graham ended the call.

'I really hope this ends Adi's trickery. I really need to just focus on the mission and not be wary of her every movement.'

'I hope so too!' Agreeing, 5025 appeared at Avina's foot in its cat form.

'Aren't you the cutest!' Avina picked up 5025 and nuzzled its small nose. 5025 gave Avina a small kiss on her nose in return.

"There you are!" Daisy called out. In her hands were 2 cartons of milk. "Got you some milk. Who's this cute lil guy?"

Daisy placed down the milk next to them and reached out to pet 5025. 5025 slapped her hands away with its paw leaving a satisfying smacking sound.

Daisy stepped back and blew on her hand. "Feisty fella!"

Avina picked up the small darling and cuddled him in her arms. "He's a cute feisty fella."

5025 let out content meows rubbing its head against Avina's face. It loved its Host very much!! With all its data compiled!

"So what do you do in the gardening club? I submitted my forms with the other guys," Daisy said as she sat down next to Wilona. She stuck her straw into her milk and sipped.

"I haven't participated much in the club. Today will be the first time actually," Avina told her. She took the other carton and poked the straw in. Taking a good sip, a fresh milky taste spread in her mouth,

Daisy looked at her shocked before exclaiming, "Really!? Haven't done a single thing yet!?"

Avina laughed and nodded. It couldn't be helped; she wasn't interested in gardening in the first place. Not to mention, the most important thing right now was the show. Anything else could wait.

"Then we're all newbies! This will be fun!" Daisy cheerfully said. Her bright voice echoed in the empty space, and the two spent their break hanging out.

School ended, but there was still no use from Mr. Greene. Avina stared at the clock counting the ticks and finally, the last bell rang. She sat up and began packing her bag.

"Hello, Wilona," a hideous voice called out. Avina stopped in her tracks and lifted her head. It was Adi.

Avina returned her hello, "Hello, Adi."

'5025, turn on a voice recorder.' The more evidence they had, the better. If Adi was willing to give them more, then she would happily oblige in collecting it.

"How have you been?" Adi sat at the desk in front of her, and stared at her with deep dark eyes of amusement. Her hand rested under her chin while she smiled at Wilona.

Wilona quickened her hands stuffing her stuff in her bag. She did not want to be here a minute longer!

"What's the rush? Hang out with me like old friends?" Adi reached out and pressed one her moving hands down. Wilona looked at her hand anxious of her next moves.

"After all, you're about to be famous in our school," Adi continued. "Although I do wonder how you managed to get on the show."

Adi made sure Wilona wasn't moving before lifting her hands away. She smiled while twirling a strand of her hair. Her eyes curved even more as her smile widened.

"Sorry to hear what happened to you this morning," Adi comforted, although heavily faked. "It must have hurt a lot."

Adi slowly got out of her chair and walked closer to Wilona. "They probably didn't mean it. It was probably harmless teasing. You know that right? After all, we teased each other so much before."

Teasing? If that was teasing, then Avina didn't want to know what Adi's "bullying" was.

"Chill, Wilona. No one likes such an uptight person," Adi said. She patted Wilona's shoulders still with that creepy grin of hers.

"That's right. No one will like you if you act like this." Adi walked away. She left her words like a warning and left like the wind.

Avina stood there staring at Adi's disappearing back. Her heart was slightly faster than before. Adi was predictable but also unpredictable.

All her actions were shallow, and plus, she had a monitor on her. But it's also because she was unscrupulous with her actions that there seems to be no limit to what she could do. No matter how Adi seemed calm. Avina could not let her guard down.

'Darn. She didn't reveal any evidence we could use.' That was what Avina was most disappointed about. She had thought Adi had come to threaten her, but all she did was speak one sided gibberish with a hidden threat at the end.

'Let's just head to the greenhouse.' Avina packed everything left on the table and headed to the greenhouse. Everyone was waiting there, and she still had to invite them over.