The Locker Wars

Soon the air grew colder, and the rebel teens at Barrington high school all started to wear sweaters because they knew that a big winter was coming. It was the tip of October, the night where kids dressed up in costumes and knocked on doors for candy. But for those rebel teens at Barrington high school, it was a night to go out, party, and get drunk.

But for others, like Adele Bradlee, it was a night packed with homework and having to deal with whiny kids. Oh well.

And even though Talia, Riley, Diane and Kirsten had begged her to go out with them, even just around for a little while as some older sisters escorted younger siblings, Adele still wanted to stay in. She felt like it was necessary to finish homework, even if the teachers weren’t checking.

But of course, after finishing homework, she’d work on a plan. After all, she wasn’t going to let Beckett get away with taking her cat, was she?

So after she hung up the phone on Riley, who was trying to convince her (yelling) to come out and have fun. But Adele was convinced she was too old for fun. Her fun would be going to university and studying law, that’s what it would be.

Adele skipped over to her bed, leaning over to uncover a few plans that she kept under the mattress. Some of them she’d had since she was about six or seven, when things had started to get really intense with their ‘war’, and some were recent. It was all in this notebook, which would have been dangerous if Beckett knew where to find them, but Adele was pretty sure that he wouldn’t find them anywhere.

“Let’s see,” Adele licked her thumb and fingered through the pages. “Hmmm...” There had always been this one plan that she’d written out on her eighth birthday, that involved a trampoline and cake going down Beckett’s pants... but of course, she probably wouldn’t go through with that. So she kept flipping through the pages until she found a fresh new one. She smoothed it out and began to write.

- Beckett likes music.

Yeah, that was an observation. Adele wasn’t too fond of music. She’d found it quite distracting and only listened to the radio, but not too often. She racked her brain for more information. She could do better than that.

- Beckett is good at writing.

Another stupid well-known fact about him. She looked deeper into the times in English class. What else had happened? Anything interesting? Anything she’d noticed, any sort of small detail?

- Beckett writes poems that turn into songs, hence the liking music fact above.

That was sort of lame. So she leaned into deeper things than that of observing Beckett write his stupid damned poetry. Perhaps this was a job for Adam Siska. But no, he would probably have been too scared or something to go spy on Beckett more.

- He writes love poems.

What good would love poems be? Or perhaps... there was something lying under the poems. The poems had to be driven by some sort of force or feeling, Adele thought. That’s what had inspired other poets—or so she had read up on. She’d never had such a strong feeling that she’d want to write a poem about it. Unless it was finishing that huge science project in ninth grade, in one night. But nobody wrote poems about projects or homework, so Adele didn’t either.

And then she thought of it—the driving force of those poems must have been love! And what was Beckett writing about the last time that Adele turned around and caught a glimpse of it? Well, he always swiped his hand over his paper, because he probably didn’t want her to see. Plus, she guessed that English class would be the easiest class to sneak something like a poetry book in to write. The teacher hardly ever cared what they wrote, as long as it had good grammar and good spelling. In Beckett’s case, he had both.

Adele squealed in excitement, staring out the window at the little kids wandering the streets. And here she was, skipping out on Halloween to discover that Beckett had a weakness—his own feelings. Or hormones, whichever was more accurate for a teenage boy.

Leaning back on her pillows, Adele slowly began to devise a plan in her head.

* * *

The next day after school and trying to see what the hell Beckett kept so secret in his notebook (she caught a glimpse of the phrase ‘Broken, I dream of a girl.’); Adele rushed home and thought about her plan.

How depressing, he actually likes someone who doesn’t like him back, Adele had thought, but whatever. At least she knew that he had feelings for someone.

Giggling, Adele picked up the phone and dialed a number scrawled on her hand. She waited a few times before someone picked up.

“Hello, Siska residence.”

“Hello, I’m calling for Adam?” Adele asked.

“And may I ask who’s speaking?”

“I’m his friend from school.”

“Adam’s not home yet—oh, he just walked through the door. One second.” There was a mumble on the other line, and then a huffed, “Hello?”

“Listen you little Siska shit, you better get over to my house right now. I need you to do something for me.” Adele ordered, and then she bit her lip. “Okay, okay. I just need you to get over here and don’t tell your friends anything or else...”

“Okay, I’ll... uh... I’ll be right over. I mean, is this about,” Adam gulped, and then whispered, “The war?”

“Yes! Why would I call you out of nowhere?! So get over here so I can explain my plan to you,” Adele sighed exasperatedly, and then hung up, waiting for her plan to start rolling into action.