Elise opened the take-out carrier bag to reveal the delicately-prepared dishes. Her stomach rumbled at
the sight of the food and before long, the three girls sat on their stools and began to dig in.
“This is so good!” Samantha exclaimed in delight as she took a bite of one of the dishes.
Upon hearing this, Riley quickly sampled a mouthful of the food as well. “That’s incredible. I need to
know the name of the restaurant so that I can drop by in the future.”
“I could bring the both of you along next time,” Elise offered heartily.
The two girls agreed earnestly, and as Riley ate her supper, she caught a glimpse of Samantha’s wrist
watch. “Samantha, is that a new watch you’re wearing? It’s gorgeous!”
“Thanks. My daddy gave it to me for my birthday,” Samantha explained. “It’s a limited edition from
Chanel; I couldn’t bear to take it out of the box until two days
ago.”
“It’s beautiful. I should get my dad to buy me one, too,” Riley said. She glanced over at Elise and asked
cheerily, “Do you have a watch that you like, Elise? I’ll get it for you as a gift one of these days.”
Elise, however, made her opinion known. “I’m not really into watches. I’ve always thought of them as
impractical accessories.”
“Come on, you can tell a lot about a person from the watch they’re wearing and it’s scarily accurate,”
Riley argued. “It’s like a symbol of your status or something.”
Samantha nodded in agreement. “My daddy and his business partners all have a staple piece in their
watch collection. The watches represent who they are.”
Elise hummed in response, conceding to the argument. “Well, in that case, I should probably read up
on this theory.”
They talked while they devoured the food and after they had polished the take-out containers clean,
they worked through a couple more questions before washing up
for bed.
Elise woke earlier the next morning. She arrived at the classroom only to find that it was empty save for
Zachary, who had his head down as he scribbled furiously onto a piece of paper.
It was only after she went closer to him that she noticed the crumpled papers being littered on the floor
around his desk. She gingerly picked one of them up and opened it, trying to smoothen the edges.
“Your workings are wrong in the first place.” Elise’s voice rang out close to Zachary’s ear and he was so
stunned that he stopped scribbling at once. He looked up and met her gaze before she saw that she
was staring at the test paper he had discarded.
He had been trying to solve that question with all the workings he could come up with, all to no avail.
He didn’t think she would show up just as he was reaching the peak of frustration.
“Do you know how to solve it?” he asked, gazing at her intently.
She did not answer him as she took the pencil on his desk and drew an auxiliary line on his diagram.
“You should have drawn the auxiliary line here instead and used Pythogaras’ theorem to determine the
remaining two angles. After that, you use the same formula for this side of the triangle, and finally use
trigonometry to come up with the final answer.”
Elise spoke gently but firmly and steadily, her voice calming Zachary in an instant. She had lowered her
head as she explained the workings to him, drawing his attention to the diagram on the draft as she did
so. He could just detect the faint scent of her shampoo lingering on her hair and for a moment, he felt
like someone was pulling at his heartstrings.
A somewhat embarrassed Zachary quickly looked away and responded, “I’ll give it a shot.”
With that, he picked up his pen and gave her method a shot. She watched as he scribbled his workings
and when she was sure he could figure it out, she sauntered over to her own seat.
Meanwhile, after having followed her workings, he found himself solving the question. His eyes
brightened and he turned to look at Elise with a newfound
admiration.
The lessons that morning were more hectic than usual, but Zachary, who had always been focused in
class, was distracted. As soon as each lesson was over, his gaze would unknowingly flicker to where
Elise sat.
It wasn’t long before lunchtime rolled around. She was packing her things when Samantha and Riley
came over. “Hey, Elise, let’s grab lunch at the cafeteria.”
Elise hummed in response. “Okay, give me a second to keep my stuff away.” After having said that, she
kept her things in her desk drawer and rose from her seat to leave the room with the girls.
When lunch was over, Samantha walked out of the cafeteria and absentmindedly brushed her wrist.
With a start, she spoke urgently, “Hey, where’s my watch? It’s missing!”
Riley couldn’t resist tapping the girl on her head. “Dude, don’t you remember removing it and putting it
in your bag during the last lesson?”
Samantha blinked at her in bewilderment. “I did? Okay, let’s hurry back to check on it.”
However, when the girls returned to class, they discovered that the watch wasn’t in Samantha’s bag at
all.
Panic instantly washed over her. “I know I’ve left it in my bag. It couldn’t have just disappeared!”
Upon seeing how frantic she was, Riley placated, “Hey, don’t worry. Try searching your bag again.”
Elise was just as taken aback by the sudden turn of events and joined in their efforts of looking for the
watch. “Are you sure you placed it in your bag? Maybe you dropped it in the cafeteria.”
Samantha shook her head. “No, I left it in my bag. I never took it with me to the cafeteria.”
“It’s alright. If you’re sure that you’ve never brought it out of the classroom, then it has to be here
somewhere. Go around the room and look for it,” Elise soothed.
However, try as they might, they could not locate the watch. The rest of the students were spilling into
the classroom and when they heard that Samantha had lost her watch, some of them started looking
for it as well. Alas, their efforts did not pay off.
“Well, if you really can’t find it anywhere, you might as well have everyone check each other’s bags.
Maybe someone stole it.” The voice that rose above the chatter made Elise frown and she turned to
see that it was Amanda who spoke. She was rooted in her seat and wickedly smiling at Elise, which
gave Elise the feeling that the girl was up to no good.
“I second that idea. Go through each other’s bags, guys. After all, Samantha’s watch is a designer one
and someone might have stolen it.”
In support of this suggestion, the majority of the class began to search through each other’s bags
without fear, seeing as they had nothing to hide anyway. Elise walked back to her desk and picked up
her bag, then rummaged through it. The next second, she blanched as her fingers clasped around
something cold and familiar. She took the watch out, a gesture that was immediately met with an
outburst from the rest of the class.
“My goodness, it was her! She was the one who took it!”
“No way! Who could have thought that an outstanding student like her would do something as shady as
this?”
“Consider my worldview warped. I can’t believe someone would stoop to stealing from a friend even in
this time and age.”
“For someone like her to show up around here is an insult to the rest of us. It’s practically derogatory.”
Everyone was piling in with disapproving remarks and it only sounded meaner than the last. Elise felt
her heart sink as she looked at Samantha and handed the watch over. “I don’t know how your watch
wound up in my bag, but I didn’t take it,” she spoke in clear, unwavering tones.
Samantha stared at the watch in mild surprise and she couldn’t react in time to take it back. However,
Riley was the first to say, “There’s no way Elise could have taken the watch; she was with us the whole
time. Someone must have planted this in her bag to frame her!”
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