"I'll let you in on a little secret. I always add cream to the chocolate to make the ganache extra velvety. Then I let it infuse for one minute."

"I love it when your dad comes in to class and gives us pastry lessons!" Alya murmurs to Marinette. She laughs.

"So does he."

"Urgh, do they seriously think I'm going to get my hands dirty, cooking like some maid? If I want a croissant, I can just ask my butler to get it for me."

"He's not making croissants, Chloe," Rose protests. "Those are macaroons!"

"It's all done with a flick of the wrist," Tom says. "But you mustn't go too fast or you might splash yourself!"

"And soil my Chenal pants?" Chloe scoffs. "Who's he kidding?"

"And look at this lovely emulsion," Tom beams. Rose gasps.

"It's beautiful!"

Marinette isn't paying attention. She knows how to make macaroons. Instead, she's watching Chloe dial a number and put her phone to her ear.

"Now we need to chill it for half an hour. Marinette?"

Not listening, Marinette jumps when she hears her name and entirely misses what Chloe says down the phone. By the time she's recovered, the phone is back in Chloe's bag.

"Could you put this in the school cafeteria fridge for me, please? In the meantime, I'm going to show your friends how to whip up egg whites!"

"Sure!" Marinette says aloud, coming up and taking the bowl. As she goes past Alya, she mutters, "if he's showing my friends, someone needs to kick Chloe out the room."

She can hear Alya chuckling as she leaves.

She's just got to the bottom of the stairs when she hears the alarm.

"Single file line, please. Just keep moving."

"I hope it's only a fire drill," Tom says to Marinette, as she joins the line behind him. She can't help glaring at Chloe. When they all get down to the safety point, Mr. Damocles addresses the students. Tom takes the bowl from Marinette, exchanges a few words with Ms. Bustier, and leaves.

Well, there goes the end of the pastry lesson.

"Some smart aleck had the bright idea of calling the fire department," Mr. Damocles says. There's a firefighter standing beside him, who is clearly itching to leave. Marinette glances behind her, and sees that Chloe is filing her nails with absolutely no concern for what their principal is saying. "Somebody amongst us thought it would be funny to waste the fire captain's valuable time."

"Yes, about that, if you wouldn't mind..." the captain says, but Mr. Damocles completely ignores him.

"I want the guilty party to apologise to him, immediately."

"I'm sure it's Chloe," Marinette mutters to Alya. "I saw her on her phone right before the alarm went off!"

"Seeing her on her phone isn't solid proof, girl," Alya replies. Marinette sighs.

"Mr. Damocles, sir?"

Marinette whips around at the speed of light. Is Chloe actually going to apologise?

"I saw a student leaving the classroom just before the alarm went off. It must have been her!"

If it wasn't attached to her face, Marinette's jaw probably would have hit the ground at such speed that it would go right through the earth and out the other side.

"Let's see if she'll come clean," Chloe continues, smirking. "What do you say, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"

"Marinette, do you have something to tell the fire captain?" Mr. Damocles asks. Marinette shakes her head, unable to speak.

"Excuse me, sir," Adrien says. Adrien, coming forward and defending her. "It couldn't possibly be her. Why would she disrupt her own father's cooking class?"

"And I know for a fact that Marinette didn't have her phone on her when she left the classroom," Alya adds. She has a point. Marinette's phone is still in her bag upstairs.

"Mr. Damocles, I must be heading out..." says the captain.

"Just one more second," Mr. Damocles snaps. "We're very close to discovering the truth.'

"Who's wasting the fire captain's valuable time now?" Marinette mutters.

"Well, we all know it can't be me!"

This outright lie infuriates Marinette.

"I'm not going to let her get away with this," she says.

"Hang on, Marinette," Adrien says in her ear. "We don't know for sure that it even was her."

"He's right," Alya says. "We don't want to stoop to her level."

"I really have to leave now," the fire captain insists. "Just call me if you find out who the prankster is."

He turns to leave, but Mr. Damocles stops him yet again.

"Fine. Since no one is owning up, the whole school will be punished!"

Marinette isn't the only one to gasp at the unfairness of it.

"What?" Chloe shrieks, before pulling out her phone. "I'm not so sure my father will react kindly to me being punished without proof!"

"Oh, no! Don't disrupt the busy mayor. Everyone is punished, except Miss Bourgeois."

Marinette gasps at the unfairness of it all. Everyone being punished for something they didn't do is bad enough, but the one person who did do it is the one person not being punished?

"Now you know how we deal with someone who misuses the fire department's time."

"Okay, great, bye!" And the fire captain is out the door before Mr. Damocles can stop him.

"Did you see what just went down?" Alya asks, shocked. Marinette glances behind her, sees Adrien is gone, and replies with, "Yeah, Adrien spoke in my ear!"

"And you can customise the jewels yourself!"

"Ooh, it's so cute!" Rose says in delight. After the incident at school, Alya had insisted on getting all the girls over to Marinette's place to try on some of her designs. Trying to distract Marinette from the incident earlier, obviously.

"Hold on, nobody move, this'll make a great home page for your future blog." Alya raises her phone, but a ping distracts her. "Chloe? What's she texting me for?"

"What does that bratty snob want?" Marinette asks. Needless to say, she hasn't exactly moved on.

"She's inviting me to a party," Alya says in shock. Each of the girls checks their own phone, and it turns out that everyone has an invite.

"Maybe someone's hacked her phone?" Mylene laughs. Marinette checks her phone.

"I haven't received an invite."

"Must be Chloe, then!" Alya laughs. A moment later, however, Marinette's invite comes through.

"Eww, she invited me!" Marinette says.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Rose says in delight.

"Wait, you're actually going to go?" Marinette asks, shocked.

"She probably wants to say sorry for this morning," Mylene says. "Maybe she's nice. Very, very deep down."

"Chloe?" Marinette scoffs. "She's the opposite of nice. Whatever, you can go, but don't count me in."

Alya's phone pings again.

"It's Nino. He and Adrien are going to the party."

"Okay, you guys were totally right," Marinette says. "We should totally give Chloe one more chance."

To be perfectly honest, there are exactly two reasons Marinette will be going to the party. Firstly, akuma ideas. Chloe is bound to insult someone by the end of the night, even if it's Marinette herself, and she needs inspiration for Season 2 of TP. The second is, of course, Adrien.

To Marinette's shock, there isn't a single one. When Chloe insults Mylene's jumper, she promptly corrects herself and says it's lovely. When Chloe insults Kim after he offers her a dance, she changes her mind and accepts it. Marinette even gets to dance with Adrien, but that's the final straw for Chloe.

"I'm not letting her dance with Adrien under my roof."

"If I may re-say, Mademoiselle..." protests the butler.

"Move, Jean-Jacques!"

And then, to the surprise of everyone present, the butler pulls out a yellow teddy bear and begins to speak in a squeaky voice.

"Oh, please, Chloe! You've been such a good girl! Mr. Cuddly is so very proud..."

Chloe attempts to make the butler hide the bear, but it's too late. Everyone has seen. She turns and glares at him.

"I've had it with your stupid teddy bear, your stupid advice, and you, Jean Whatever-Your-Name-Is."

"But, mademoiselle, I was only trying to help you-"

"There's no more mademoiselle, no more anything. You are fired, get out!"

And with that, Chloe stomps out the room, leaving the butler alone in the room full of kids.

"I suppose this means that Mademoiselle Chloe's party is over," he says. "I apologise for the abrupt ending, but I believe it would be prudent to leave as quickly as possible."

Marinette has no problem obliging. When she arrives home, she opens Miraculous for the first time since Christmas. She's about to click Create New Episode, before she stops.

Episode 24? She didn't make an Episode 24.

She clicks it, and reads the note from ChatNoir at the bottom. She can't help grinning. Well, maybe she won't tell him about Despair Bear either.

It takes her a lot longer to create the episode without ChatNoir's help, and she ends up staying up late to finish it. But it's worth it, to add the note at the end.

Hey guys!! LadyBug here, with the start of Season 2 for you all!!

LadyBug out

And she can't resist adding,

P.S. Don't tell ChatNoir about this episode, he doesn't know yet

And then she clicks post.

(Because I'd be kind of a terrible author if I uploaded the Season 2 opener and didn't actually upload an episode)