Story code: ST-000001
Part 2: I Asked Her to Say It Again
The screen said Updated by Event Coordinator right under the wrong time, and the whole lobby got quieter in that odd, public way where nobody wants to admit they heard the first version too confidently. Dana still had the microphone in her hand. I had markers under one arm, construction paper on the table behind me, and my own name glowing above my head like I had volunteered to be humiliated. So I looked at her and said, “Okay. Say it again. Tell everybody how I changed a screen that says the update came from an event coordinator.”
A couple people turned back to Dana instead of me. It was the first shift I had seen since she called me out.
She did not lift the microphone this time. “That label only reflects the type of posting,” she said. “It doesn’t prove who touched it.”
“Then who can touch it?” I asked.
“Authorized people.”
“Am I one of them?”
She did not answer right away. Her free hand flattened over the clipboard. “That’s not the issue.”
Leah, who had been the quickest to jump in, looked up at the screen and then back at Dana. “Can regular volunteers edit those?”
Dana gave her a look, then said to me, “You were near the check-in area. You had access to materials. You were the one whose name appeared.”
The problem with that sentence was that it wasn’t an answer to anything I had asked.
I put the markers back on the table so my hands were free. “Materials aren’t a password,” I said. “And if this is about the announcement feed, let’s check whatever you’re basing this on before you keep saying my name into a microphone.”
Her chin lifted a little. “I saw the confusion you caused. Parents were asking where to go.”
“That isn’t what I asked either.”
The screen cycled again. Swim notice. Senior yoga. Then the art club card came back, same wrong time, same room, same line at the bottom. Updated by Event Coordinator.
A man near the hallway said, “If it says coordinator, shouldn’t staff check it?”
Dana turned toward him just enough to keep hold of the room. “Staff is being brought in.”
As if on cue, Mr. Ellis Grant stepped out from the side office doorway near the front desk. He had a ring of keys clipped to his belt and a lanyard badge that kept tapping against his sweater when he walked. He did not rush in like a rescuer. He looked at Dana, then at me, then at the screen.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Dana spoke first. “Maya interfered with the schedule display and caused confusion for tonight’s room traffic.”
I pointed to the bottom corner of the screen. “The card says Updated by Event Coordinator. She’s telling people I changed it. I want to know if volunteers can post to that feed.”
Mr. Grant stepped under the screen and waited for the slide to cycle back. When it did, he leaned slightly, reading the bottom strip. His expression did not change much, but he kept looking a beat longer than he had before.
“Volunteers don’t log in to this display,” he said.
Nobody said anything for a second.
Leah uncrossed her arms. “Then why is she being blamed for it?”
Dana shifted the clipboard from one arm to the other. “Because her name is on the listing. Obviously someone wanted it there. Maybe she asked somebody to put it up. Maybe she-”
“Who?” I said.
She stopped.
I kept my voice level. “Who did I ask? If you’re making that claim in front of all these people, say who you’re claiming I asked.”
Her eyes cut to Mr. Grant and then back to me. “I’m saying your involvement is clear.”
“My name being on a screen isn’t involvement. It means my name is on a screen. The time is wrong. The update label says coordinator. And you announced I tampered with it before staff even checked whether I could access it.”
I could hear shoes squeak in the hallway. Somebody near the front doors whispered, “That’s true.” Not loud, but loud enough.
Dana finally raised the microphone again, but she didn’t speak into it. She was holding it like a prop now, not like a tool.
Mr. Grant looked from the screen to Dana’s clipboard. “Dana, what exactly were you looking at before you made the announcement?”
“The feed was wrong,” she said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
She slid one thumb under the papers on the clipboard. Just for a second, I saw the top sheet: a printed room schedule with handwritten changes in dark ink. Room B was circled. The time beside art club had been crossed out and replaced.
5:30.
Not on the wall. On her paper.
I stared at it long enough that she noticed and snapped the clipboard flat against her side.
Mr. Grant noticed the motion too. “Let me see the schedule sheet,” he said.
Dana did not hand it over.
Leah took one small step back from Dana and looked at me instead of her. The father who had pulled his son away earlier was still standing there, not leaving now.
Dana’s voice came out thinner than before. “We don’t need to do this here.”
That was the first thing she had said all night that sounded different from certainty.
Mr. Grant held out his hand for the clipboard and kept it there. “Dana. The schedule sheet.”
She hesitated, then turned her body half away from the lobby like she was deciding whether to protect the page or the story. And standing there under the screen with my name still lit up over the wrong time, I realized the printed sheet in her hand might match the bad update exactly.