I (26f) am starting collecting anime figures, not the pricey scale ones, but rather prize figures and original gashapons. I do have some bootlegs i bought years ago, and throwing them away to rot in the landfields is just sad. They are staying but won't buy anything thats not original anymore. i have a some-what niece (my cousin's daughter-7f) that is just... a demon of a child. She has a fixation for my plushies, manga, overall decor including my figures. I have already told her not to touch, that they are not toys and shouldn't be used for play, manga are not colouring books, etc. If im home i just lock the door and deny access, but if im away for the weekend there was nothing i could do, since my mother didn't understand the "big deal" and my cousin just gets mad at anyone trying to discipline her daughter. Well, as you can imagine, some time ago when i came back from a small trip over the weekend my niece came home to visit. Not only did she took a bite of a scented candle, stole a littlest pet shop collectible and messed with my art supplies, but had also broke a bootleg LookUp figure and took the arms off another figurine, and hid them under my bed. I was pissed, i noticed the candle and that the figures werent on the shelf at first glance. When confronted my mother denied that this child came home at all, but of course i showed her the candle right away and she confessed that the child was a bit bothersome about wanting one of my plushies to play and she let her in. After looking for my figures i noticed the messing with my supplies and my lps figurine gone, and when i found my anime figures broken my mother panicked, since she knows that some figures can be expensive. Here is when i could i been the asshole. As i said, these are just bootlegs, im pretty sure they cost less than 8usd. But one of them is a lookup knockoff so i just pretended that this one was an original just to scare her. Told her how much they cost and she got pretty upset (for context, lookups can sell for 150usd or higher in my country, since shipping is expensive and resellers take advantage of how hard it can be to order stuff from japan). I told her not to worry, that i will glue-it and it will be good to go. I told her that paying me back wont be necessary, but please ask for my lps back and tell my cousin to teach her to respect boundaries. Yesterday i placed an order from a proxy for some figures, and my mother is insisting on paying for them for the damages my niece caused. It took me by surprise since this was some months ago and now i feel like i shouldn't have lied for so long. But at the same time my niece hasn't even tried to get to my room since then, so i know that my mother has learnt her lesson and is now more careful with my stuff. Should i tell her the truth, or WIBTA if i keep on lying about my bootleg figure "price"?