The Locker Wars

It didn’t take long for William to talk to his friends about the strange guilt that he felt. They all managed to rationalize in their heads that if they all got humiliated by Adele Bradlee, then she deserved this little taste of revenge. Plus, it wasn’t like they were going to kill her cat.

So come the next morning, William called Adele at six-thirty and told her to show up at his house by seven-thirty. He heard her huff on the phone, saying an hour wasn’t enough, and that she’d only fallen asleep a few hours earlier thanks to worrying about her ‘precious baby kitty’. And he was all slightly amused at the fact that he was emotionally harming her, but who cared, right?

School didn’t usually start until eight-forty, so they had over an hour. William kept wondering what he was going to ask Adele to do first, with his deal he had going on. Or maybe he should be nice and let her see the cat; it wasn’t like she was going to steal it back to her house or anything. Or maybe she would.

It was nearly seven and William’s mom burst through his door.

“Mom!” William cried. He hadn’t put on a shirt yet.

“Relax, I gave birth to you,” his mom scolded. “I just wanted to see if you were up. I’m going to be making breakfast soon.”

“Mom, Adele’s going to be coming over soon because she wants me to walk with her to school,” William informed, pulling a blue t-shirt over his head. It smelled sort of weird, so he threw it off and searched for another one.

“Oh? Should I make her breakfast then?”

“Mom...”

“Oh, okay, all right. I see. Go take her out for breakfast then.” His mom winked, and William gagged a little inside.

“I didn’t mean it like that!”

But she had already shut the door behind herself, and William could hear her giggling on the other side of the door. Parents always assumed the stupidest things.

* * *

Adele brought herself to whack the front door of the Beckett residence. It was all she could manage with her lack of energy due to no sleep at all. A moment later, the door opened, revealing Mrs. Beckett.

“Good morning, Adele! Why don’t you come inside? I have breakfast waiting.” She smiled.

“Oh, that’s okay, I’m fine,” Adele sighed, blinking a few times to keep herself awake.

“Don’t be silly! William’s still upstairs—God knows how long that boy takes to get ready—and besides, you’re looking a little thin. Are you cooking all right at home with your parents gone? I should have told William to invite you to dinner a few times. Oh dear, come inside. Now I wonder why he’s inviting you so early, he knows girls need their sleep...”

She kept rambling on and on about things that Adele couldn’t really hear. She just smelled food and she was immediately hungry, and she suddenly didn’t care if William Beckett was an asshole. At least he had nice parents.

Mrs. Beckett seated Adele at the kitchen table and gave her a plate full of eggs, bacon, toast, and more things that she probably couldn’t swallow before school. It was like a feast for breakfast, and all Adele usually had in the morning was coffee.

“Morning—oh, you’re here,” William suddenly entered the kitchen. “I guess we’ll eat and then go.”

“Manners, William, there are guests,” his mom scolded again as William took a seat across from Adele at the table. He stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth before his mom gave him another warning look, and then he sighed and chewed properly and sat up straight. His mom was strict on those things.

Adele didn’t look at him while she was eating. She hated him to the point of plotting his murder in her head, and just being there felt a million times worse. She knew her cat was in this house somewhere as well, so that was harder for her. She didn’t even know if he was feeding her cat right.

“We’re going to leave for school early,” William told his mom. “Adele and I are going to walk and then study at the library.”

Adele rolled her eyes. She didn’t know what kind of excuse he was plotting right now. It definitely didn’t involve the library, that’s for sure. They were too smart for the library.

William’s mom surveyed them with the look that said, ‘You’re growing up so fast’; the usual motherly look. “I’m glad you have a good friend like Adele.”

And Adele was thinking the exact opposite.

* * *

“And he was like, ‘Okay, you’re going to like, piggyback me to school.’ So I was like, ‘No fucking way you fat bitch’, and he was like, ‘You’re the fat bitch!’ and then he made me carry his bags to school while he listed off random embarrassing moments involving me when we were kids. And I had to do whatever he wanted because I don’t even know what he and his crew are doing to my poor Snuffles.”

Adele was sitting at her locker before school, surrounded by her friends. She ran her fingers through her hair. “He’s such an asshole. Seriously, I don’t know why he had to sink into my life like that.”

“Don’t worry, Adele, we’ll get him back,” Riley soothed her friend and rubbed her on the back. “God, every guy knows not to call a girl fat... that was totally pushing it. You’re not even fat.”

“Whatever,” Adele mumbled, and she felt like skipping lunch, especially with the breakfast she had that morning. “He’s just really getting on my nerves with this revenge thing... we really need a counter attack. Soon would be nice. As soon as possible, even.”

“Maybe we should think over a better plan...” Diane suggested quietly.

“But he has my cat,” Adele sighed. “We’re going to DQ later to think up plans.”