The Locker Wars

William flopped down onto his bed. The rest of the night at the Bradlee house had been less than enjoyable, but he managed to survive it. He didn’t know how or why he put up with Adele sitting on the couch beside him, insulting his face to get some sort of reaction, but he did.

So, to that poem. He needed to write about something. That feeling. Any feeling. His fingers were just itching to pick up the pen and let it all out.

He felt around between his pillow and the mattress for his poetry book. Every poem about how he felt, how he felt about her, his parents, his friends... everything was in that notebook. Everything he thought, it was written in his messy cursive.

He found the spot to be empty, so he got up and searched his desk. If it wasn’t in his bed, or at his desk, where would it be?

Maybe his bag.

William sighed and went to his schoolbag that was in its usual corner of the room until he picked it up for the next day, and finding no notebook, he flung it across the room.

Maybe it was at school.

Because if it was anywhere else, he’d be fucking screwed.

* * *

William raced to school faster than he had ever raced to get to a concert of his favorite band, or some other assignment that would be a piece of cake in class. It just had to be at school. Or else... well, he’d already gone over the ‘or else’ in his mind.

“Yo, William,” Jason waved his arm in front of William’s face when he entered the school, but Bill only huffed and ran to his locker. Jason stepped back, feeling rejected, but decided to leave William to whatever he was doing.

When William got to his locker he fucked up the combination a few times, but grunting, he opened it on the fourth try. He went through his books and his binders and ever folder and every corner of his locker or anywhere else it would be, but nothing.

Nothing.

“Fuck!” William cursed loudly, causing a few younger students to shrink back in fear. A few teachers hissed at him, telling him to shush because foul language like that was not tolerated at the school.

But no, this was a fucking emergency. Where the fuck had that book gone? He swore that he never let it out of his sight.

Just then, Adele Bradlee came skipping up to her locker, humming some song from the Top 40 charts under her breath. The way she was smiling made Bill’s heart skip a beat, and he almost felt better.

Almost, until he let himself back into the real world.

“What’s up with you?” Adele questioned, pointing at his chest. She was right. He was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf ready to blow a house down, or something.

“Something... someone... some fucker stole something of mine,” Bill muttered, but turned away from her. If he wasn’t so distracted, he would be thinking. Who the fuck would take his book? Who the fuck would want to take his book? Did someone want to steal his poems?

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Adele giggled. William only tried to block it out so he could concentrate.

“Yeah, I think I have to go have a talk with some freshmen,” William growled. “I’ll... um... see you later, or something. And... oh, never mind.”

He still drowned out Adele’s giggles as he walked away, his mind racing. Where could it have gone?

If someone stupid got a hold of it... The things in that book would ruin him.

He was so vulnerable right now, with that book gone.

Everything was in that book...