Super Digital Citizens and their responsibilities

The Story

The poster looked brilliant. A glowing rangoli picture across the top. A neat paragraph about Diwali safety. A photo of Kabir at the bottom, caught mid-sneeze, because it was funny.

Ms. Rao looked at it for a while. Then she asked three questions, in a very ordinary voice.

"Whose rangoli is that?"

"I found it," said Anaya. "It was just there."

"Somebody drew it. Do we know who?"

Anaya scrolled back. The artist's name was right under the picture on the website: Meera Nair.

"Second question. Whose words are these?"

Anaya went slightly pink. She had copied the paragraph exactly.

"Third question. Did Kabir say yes?"

Kabir, from two seats away, said, "She did not ask me."

Nobody was in trouble. Ms. Rao just said, "Fix the three things," and walked off to help Vihaan, whose mouse had stopped working again. Pixel groaned in what sounded like sympathy.

So Anaya fixed them. She added a line under the rangoli: Rangoli by Meera Nair. She rewrote the paragraph in her own words, which took nine minutes and turned out shorter and better. Then she asked Kabir.

"Not the sneeze one," he said. "The batting one."

She swapped the photos.

The new poster took an extra twenty minutes. It also went up on the corridor wall, and the gold card went to Anaya on Friday. Ms. Rao's only comment was: "You didn't make it prettier. You made it honest."