The Locker Wars

It was late at night, but William was still up, despite the fact that he had to be awake in a few short hours.

He was sitting on his bed, bent over a few sheets of paper. The only source of light was the small lamp in his room, and it was hard to see, but William had to stay up, or so he told himself. He felt almost like a mad scientist, to a certain extent, because he wasn’t mad. Or maybe he was and just didn’t know it.

“Gotta get her back,” he muttered to himself, and then he picked up the phone. He dialed Jason’s number, because surely he would help out a friend? Especially when it had to do with the War, and pulling a prank on Adele Bradlee. He didn’t care if the sun would be up in an hour. He just had to get this done or else it’d bother him, and he knew Adele would begin to rub it in his face if he didn’t get her back soon.

“Jason,” William hissed, and he received a groan on the other line. He continued on, “Okay, so I know lunchtime pranks have totally been done in the past, and I know it’s so cliché to use the special sauce day on her, but I’m desperate, here, man. You gotta help me.”

The line was quiet for a little while until there was some rustling on Jason’s end. His voice soon filled the receiver, “Bill, dude. The fuck are you doing at four am and why’d you call me?”

“I have to get her back,” William whined, his breathing uneven. “You don’t know how much it bugs me that she pulled the first prank, and a fucking good one at that, and I can’t even come up with one! I mean, dude, I’m resorting to fucking cafeteria pranks!”

Jason sighed, “Fuck. Okay, you know in ninth grade when you snuck up behind Adele and she threw a fucking spaz?”

“Mmm.”

“And then she threatened to call your mom on you for skipping gym class that one time to try a cigarette with Dan in the guy’s change room?”

William blushed, but grunted to let Jason know he was still listening. “It was gym class and we were running laps, it shouldn’t even count as skipping, just taking a little break, even.”

“Bill, I’m not here to judge you if you missed some stupid class. I don’t care about your permanent record. So anyways, like I was saying, she threatened you.”

“Yeah, she did. And I would’ve been in big shit if I hadn’t apologized or something? Typical Adele.”

Jason groaned excitedly. “Well, that’s what you’re going to do right back to her. You know, that ‘taste of her own medicine’ type of shit? You know?”

There was a long pause.

“Well?” Jason asked with a knowing tone. William raised an eyebrow, even though Jason couldn’t see it.

“... Well what?” William finally asked.

Jason groaned. “Okay, I thought you’d know. You just gotta get her back with a little blackmail, because you know she’s already into that sort of stuff. Just to turn it right back around on her. You get it?”

“Kind of.” William nodded slowly. “Okay. I kind of get it. So I just blackmail her?”

“Yeah.”

“With what?”

Jason sighed again. “God, you’re not sharp at all. I thought I’d be fucking tired. And by the way, thanks for the wake-up call, ass hat.”

“Anytime.” William yawned and looked out the window. The sun was almost peeking behind rooftops, signaling that the day was almost here. “But what am I going to blackmail her with?”

“Dude,” Jason huffed pointedly, “You have her cat.”

* * *

A few hours later, William was sitting in homeroom. His eyes were tired and he didn’t feel like going to talk to his friends, so he sat with his head down on his desk. He was almost falling asleep.

That is, until the door to the classroom burst open. There were a few stomping footsteps before William felt a sharp pain on his head, a result of a handful of his hair being grabbed.

“You asshole! Now I’m going to have to get a new combination lock. Stay the fuck out of my locker! If you seriously do that one more time—”

William smiled at the threat as he sat up to meet Adele’s angry eyes. She stopped mid-sentence of a threat, and gave a weird look to him. “What, Beckett? Are you high? Have you gone out of your mind?”

“It’s not hard to peek over your shoulder to see what your combo is,” William shook his head, and Adele let go of his hair, dropping her arm to her side. “Advantages of being six foot two.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Adele rolled her eyes. “So what’s the note for? And why did it have to be in my locker? ‘Meet me at the courtyard at lunch’? Some stupid trick? I thought I heard Jason telling Mike you were resorting to cafeteria pranks. Running out of ideas, hm?”

William blushed. “No, I’m not. And I thought you were the smartest person in the school? Don’t you just... follow instructions? Maybe I’ll tell you something at lunch. Huh, did you ever figure that one out? Points to me; I should have the higher average.”

“Whatever,” Adele rolled her eyes again. “It better be good, or else I’m totally going to—”

William cut her off with a laugh. “Maybe you should stop giving empty threats.”

Adele narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“You’ll see.”