Revenge Stories When People Get Way Too Personal

‘You told me you wanted to be an engineer someday, right?’

Carlos could only nod, his face white.

‘You are aware that engineers take the theft of others’ work seriously?’

Again, Carlos nodded.

‘And that if you were doing this in a professional setting, you’d not only be fired from the company but blackballed from the industry?’ Mr. Lionel said, staring down at this kid.

Carlos looked like a melted snowman that wanted to disappear into the ground.

I learned later that Mr. Lionel was a nice man… but man, I could immediately see why our Dads respected him at that moment.

Mr. Lionel turned to Mrs. Adams ‘I recommend that he be disqualified from the next round and be made to apologize to these two girls in addition to returning the proofs to them.’

Carlos did return the paper and apologized for the theft, not looking me in the eye.

As a result, not only was Carlos disqualified but because he plagiarized, he flunked the project as a whole. Since TT was at least 30% of our science grade, he ended up getting his first ‘D’ on his report card… which his parents had a freaking field day with until Mr. Lionel sent them a letter telling them what their son had done and that if he didn’t shape up, he risked real trouble in his professional life.

Janice and I ultimately won Best Design… but the best award was seeing Carlos’ ego get knocked down several pegs. He was still a jerk… but was scared of us.

Hey, I might be bad at math and science… but at least I know not to be mean to people who might help me someday.”