The Locker Wars

The girls’ plan was well on its way.

It was the end of the first week of school, and the day was pretty much a free day. It was picture day, but both the groups knew how stupid it was to attempt picture day sabotage, so nothing happened then.

After picture day were shortened classes, leading up to the pep rally at the end of the day. Adele was particularly excited, but it wasn’t like she didn’t take every chance she got to humiliate William Beckett. By now, she thought, it had to be in her blood.

“Ready?” Adele whispered to Riley and Kirsten. They took their designated spots behind Mike and Michael. The two boys were oblivious to notice, with Mike pointing out various teachers and teams and people to Michael, who was trying to absorb the American atmosphere.

Adele took a seat with Diane and her newer friend, Talia, who was getting used to the thought of war. She glanced down at William Beckett, grinning to herself as the band started to enter the gym.

Meanwhile, William was sitting in the very front stand, waving at Jason as the basketball team passed by. Jason gave a nervous smile and waved back.

Adele smiled even wider when the trumpet player that she’d paid marched right by Jason, blowing an extra-loud note in his ear. Sure enough, Jason stumbled backwards into another student on the basketball team, who in turn sent him flying into the direction of the principal.

And to Adele’s delight, the principal cursed right into the microphone, which again was a loud screech in Jason’s ear. Jason tripped and landed right by William’s feet, and William sat there with wide eyes.

And Adele just sat in the higher stands, giggling her ass off.

* * *

“Honestly! The first week in school, and I’m getting this behaviour,” the principal scowled at William, Jason and Adele. They had ended up in his office after the pep rally had finally ended.

“I don’t understand why I’m here,” Adele commented with an innocent look on her face. She started to get up from the chair she was sitting in, but the principal only cleared his throat, and she sat back down.

“Of course I know to call Adele Bradlee in if it’s a mess that William Beckett’s in,” the man of authority sighed. “Mr. Siska, I don’t know what you had to do in the plans, but I’m sure you have a well-thought-out excuse. Same to you two as well.”

“It was her idea,” William glared at Adele. “She’s always trying to get me. I swear. She’s just trying to beat out my average, Mr. Hughes.”

“Well... I guess, since you’re the top two students, I’ll let you off of it,” Principal Hughes coughed. “As for you, Jason, I suspect you were merely a pawn in the games of Mr. Beckett and Miss Bradlee.”

Jason rolled his eyes.

“I’ll let you kids go home. I hope not to see you in this office too often during the school year,” the principal called as the three made their way out of the office. Once they were on their way to their lockers, William began to yell at Adele.

“You fucking set me up!” he exclaimed. “Fuck! And I didn’t even see it coming...”

They both opened their lockers at the same time, and since they were both kept after school, the halls were deserted except for the kids in the library who worked on projects or stayed simply because they thought they’d appear smarter instead of having no friends.

“Yeah,” Adele sighed, smiling to herself. “Best plan ever, I think.” She grabbed her books and shoved them in her bag, laughing a little.

“Well, I’ll admit, that was pretty risky,” William noted. “I mean, fuck, we all got in trouble for that. How are you going to step it up now? How am I going to top that one?”

“Beats me,” Adele shrugged. “I mean, I don’t even know how I’m going to beat you if you beat us.”

“Of course,” William laughed. “So who came up with that plan, anyways? It was pretty genius, I have to say, predicting all that shit to happen.”

“You don’t trust me to keep up my average and come up with fucking genius plans to get your ass in trouble?” Adele scoffed.

“Oh, all right, I see,” William rolled his eyes sarcastically.

And as much as he got under Adele’s skin, he still managed to have polite conversation with the enemy. She probably envied him for that, because if the roles had been reversed and William had pulled a prank on her, she’d have ripped his head off right then and there in the principal’s office.

“Yeah,” Adele agreed. “By the way, you don’t have anything to do with the disappearance of my cat, would you? He never came home last night. And my mother claimed that ‘William Beckett’s friend’ was visiting me.”

“Wouldn’t want to take your damn cat.” William shrugged as they both started out of the school.