Mr. Pritchard reached for the notebook.
The teacher moved it away from him.
“I’ll hold this.”
He stared at her. “I am a judge.”
“You are also Logan’s uncle.”
“That was disclosed.”
“Yes. What was not disclosed was that you were handling an accusation involving your nephew without bringing it to me.”
The words drew the attention of another judge nearby.
Mr. Pritchard lowered his voice. “This does not prove Theo didn’t copy later work.”
Priya stepped forward.
“My photos do.”
She unlocked her tablet and opened the workshop folder.
The first image showed Theo alone at a workbench holding two cardboard strips. The date was from the project’s first Saturday. The bridge behind him was crude, with a center span that sagged.
The second showed Theo and Priya testing weights while Logan watched from another table.
The third, taken days later, showed Logan beside Theo for the first time, both boys kneeling near a redesigned support.
There were more.
Theo repairing a joint.
Logan recording test results.
Both boys laughing after the second version collapsed under a stack of textbooks.
The story in the photographs was not that Logan had done nothing.
He had contributed.
That made what he had claimed worse in a different way.
He had not invented a partnership.
He had taken a real partnership and rewritten who had begun it.
The teacher looked at Logan.
“Why?”
Logan stared at the floor.
Mr. Pritchard answered for him.
“Children panic when they feel their work is being minimized.”
Theo’s father turned toward the judge.
