The Locker Wars

“I don’t understand. I checked the website before I came here, and it said that I was in room 304. I know I was,” Adele pleaded to the old man behind the desk. “Seriously. I have to change this. I swear that I had Math first. This is a chemistry class. I swear...”

“Please don’t swear, Adele,” the old man sighed. The name plaque on his desk beside the vase of flowers read, ‘Mr. Norris’. “And, I’m afraid that I can’t do anything. Senior year for every class is packed, so there is little chance of you getting to switch classes.”

Adele screamed. A full screech. “You don’t understand! This is William Beckett I am dealing with here.”

“Your homeroom teacher’s name is Mr. Specht...”

“I know! I meant that I have to have a locker beside William Beckett for the fourth year in a row. Do you know how unfair that is? He is bringing my social skills down. I mean, sure, it was okay the first three years... But a fourth? I think it’s pushing it, don’t you?” Adele begged.

“No, I don’t see the problem, because don’t you have another locker neighbour...?”

“That’s it! I’m going. Thank you for helping,” she groaned through clenched teeth.

* * *

The bell rang for homeroom just as William Beckett was strolling into room 207. He smiled when he saw Adele Bradlee at the front of the room, waving her hands frantically at the teacher, who was frowning at every word she said.

“Please! Can we at least be able to pick our own lockers this year? Since it’s our last year here?” Adele asked desperately. “Like, really. I can’t have this one little detail bugging me the whole year. You know. I have to have the highest average. It’s totally going to help my academic career.”

The teacher frowned even harder (if it was possible) at the use of the word ‘totally’. He pointed to a seat in the front of the class, and Adele took it, sulking.

William decided to take the free seat beside her.

“Greetings,” he laughed, poking her arm. “See you were trying to end the game early. Don’t you worry one bit, I’ll make this year a little more challenging. It’ll make the Jell-O-in-your-pool prank seem like something a kindergartener made up.”

“Since it was,” Adele muttered. “Go away; I was saving that seat for Kirsten.”

“Nothing alphabetical for seating?” William asked.

“No,” Adele said, glaring again. “Now go away.”

William sighed, but grabbed his bag and headed to the other side of the room, where his friends Mike and Jason were sitting.

“Dude, this year is going to be the best!” Mike exclaimed. “And... well, we’ve come up for some first-day pranks.”

“Cheating!” Jason gasped, but burst out into laughter. William let out a few chuckles before asking what the plan was.

“After lunch,” Mike replied. “Dude, it’s the best ever.”

“Since when did you start using the word ‘dude’?” William questioned. “Dude, it’s so weird, dude. You must have learned it over the summer, dude.”

“Dude, I did!” Mike smiled enthusiastically. “I went to my cousin’s in New York, dude, it was awesome.”

William rolled his eyes, but stood up just as the national anthem was starting.

* * *

Mike’s lunch prank couldn’t follow through, as Adele was nowhere in the cafeteria to be seen. Neither were her friends. They had called an emergency meeting at Dairy Queen, the place where the group always met for thinking up ideas. William might’ve been cleverer to guess where they’d meet up, but thankfully to the girls, he wasn’t.

They all ordered their traditional Blizzards before sitting in the same booth that they’d chosen to sit at for the past 5 years (not including Talia, who had just moved this year into the house beside Adele). Now, though, the five of them were too big to fit in the small booth. After a few minutes of quietly eating, Adele spoke up.

“I think this year should be different,” she started, poking in her cup with her spoon. “I mean, really different.”

“Away from the rules?” Riley asked.

“Well, duh, because William’s already invited someone else into his crew,” Adele grumbled. “It’s five against six. It’s unfair that way.”

“I heard Sean left the group,” Diane butted in. “Said it was wasting his school time. So, it should be five against five.”

“But I heard Jason mention to Bill that his little brother wanted to join,” Kirsten informed.

“Hold on!” Adele cut in. “That... that can’t happen! That breaks so many rules. First, like, isn’t he a freshman?”

“Yeah,” all of them nodded. “He’s breaking the rules. He can’t do that!”

“Well,” Adele put down her spoon and ice cream. “We’ll just have to break them right back. And I’ve been thinking anyways, since this is the last year, shouldn’t we get some new ideas? Fuck the rules? This is our last chance before we have to go off to college.”

Everyone nodded. Since Adele was the ‘leader’ of the group, there was really no choice. Still, they all agreed.

“Good. Meeting after school at my house then.”