The Locker Wars

Another year at Barrington high, and the last year for some.

Adele Bradlee skipped into the school with a small smile on her face, and her dark hair swishing on her shoulders. This year, she hoped, the game would end. Well, it would end early if she didn’t have a locker next to a certain person.

Alphabetical order was a bitch.

In the past three years, she’d had a locker next to William Beckett. Most would love having a locker next to a person that they’d known nearly all their life—but of course, the two had differences, and didn’t exactly like each other.

That’s why they started the Locker Wars. Well, they didn’t start it because they hated each other—it just kind of started. And it grew into a game with rules and pranks and spying and jokes and... Just basically anything to settle the dislike between the groups.

They posted homerooms in a list outside of the gymnasium, so that’s where Adele headed after dragging her two friends, Riley and Diane, to check the list. She already knew what her homeroom was, though; she just wanted to brag about it. And double check. Adele hated being wrong.

“Just you see, just you see,” Adele sang as she pulled the other girls along. “I don’t have to deal with the War first-hand... hah! And now I get to keep up my average without worrying.”

“You are insane,” Diane groaned. “The first day of school and you’re... perky. What has the world come to, honestly?”

“But Dee,” Adele grinned. “It’s a year without him that I could have. You don’t know how perfectly fucking amazing that would be. Oh hey, who’s the cutie?”

Adele pulled back, and her friends dropped to the shiny, tiled floor (always cleaned in the summertime). She squinted her eyes at the boy who was looking lost in the halls, holding a folded map of the school in his hands. He must’ve been new.

“I’m going to go say hi to that one,” Adele leaned over her friends. “He looks...”

“Just go away,” Diane groaned. “I need coffee before I can think about forgiving you for doing this to me this early.”

“You make no sense,” Riley pointed out. “But I’m coming with you.”

They both scrambled away as Adele made her way towards the cute boy. “Hi, I’m—”

“Pay no attention to the girl in the skirt!” someone behind her cried, and she turned around in time to see William Beckett, long brown hair and tallness, marching towards her and the boy.

“I was saying hi,” Adele muttered through her teeth. William already had an arm around the guy.

“So was I,” William smiled sweetly. “Hey, I was thinking, you look smart. Want to join this club of mine?”

“You can’t do that!” Adele cried, because he was ruining her plan. “You... you can’t. The count’s already at five. Five’s an even number for both of the teams.”

“Idiot,” William rolled his hazel eyes. “Five is an odd number.”

“That’s what I meant.”

William laughed. “Yeah, right. So anyways, kid, what’s your name? Where’d you come from? Because I know everyone at the school, and I haven’t seen you before.”

“Actually, I’m Michael, and I’m exchanging from Australia,” the kid told William with glimmering eyes. He was glad to have already made a friend. “I’m here for about a year.”

“A year, huh? That’s all we need in our club. So, what do you say? Wanna join? I guarantee lots of fun!” Adele glared at William’s ability of persuasion.

“That’s still not fair! That has to be against the rules,” Adele pouted.

“Rules? There are rules for being friends at this school?” Michael asked with a confused face.

“No,” Adele informed, “It’s a game that we... uh... do. Never mind, take his side.” And with that she stomped towards the list of homerooms, while William started explaining what his special ‘club’ did.

* * *

“Bradlee, Bradlee,” Adele chanted under her breath, her index finger running down the list. Her honey-brown eyes scanned the paper, until she found the number of her homeroom. Only, it wasn’t the right number. The number that she had checked before had been 304, and now the list was saying 207. Wrong, the list had to be wrong. Please let it be wrong.

She began to panic, searching for anyone else she knew before her to be in room 207. Only one, as predicted in the back of her mind—William Beckett. She groaned out loud.

This had to be some sort of mistake. She had checked before the year had started, and she memorized the number.

“No!” Adele screamed. “This seriously... this is... how could this happen?!”

Behind her, a guy with long dark hair and another guy with long light brown hair both laughed. Adele recognized them as William’s friends.

“Wait til we tell Bill, she talks to herself too,” the first guy, Mike Carden, told the other.

“Wow, can’t wait to toy with that this year,” the second guy, Jason Siska replied.

Adele turned around and glared at both of them, before stomping into her guidance counselor’s office.