Life Of A Bitch

4

Stephanie and I enter school quite early the next day. Steph gives me a ride as Alz hates going to school early and when I told her of my situation, she threw a tantrum. "You need to bully! Not me!" She nearly yelled. I was so afraid that my parents would hear her that I made a call to Steph on the spot and hitched a ride.

"You don't participate in bullying preparations." Steph eyes me suspiciously. "But now, you seem quite ambitious to torture this chick. What's the matter?"

Shit. Did I seem that ambitious?

"Not much, I just cannot see Brandon and his chicks happy for too long, I think." I say, scanning the lockers. "Plus, it's been so many days since I bullied someone. That's why the excitement."

Steph nods, apparently satisfied with my explanation.

"Here it is." Steph whispers, pointing at it. Locker 30.

I stare at the locker. Is it really Callaghan's?

"Are you sure Locker 30 is Callaghan's?" I ask Stephanie.

"The screenshots say that Locker 30 belongs to Callaghan."

Still. Something feels... wrong? Anyways, if the locker does open with our locker combination, that means it's Callaghan's. Nothing to worry about.

I double-check the ceilings. Great. No CCTV cameras. Foolish school authorities.

Last night, we tracked down one of the ex-boyfriends of Michelle, and found one who particularly hated her. Anita and he texted on Instagram and Anita flirted with him like a total mistress. Finally, this is what we found:

Michelle was crushing on Brandon -the audacity- since day one. She loves the fact that he is so brave and his deeds are so heroic. Her locker password is her birthdate- 060803 and that her phone password is also the same since the time they broke up. Her gmail password is iluvbran03 and she follows Brandon on Instagram through ten different accounts. Quite a fangirl. I am impressed.

"Zero six," Steph mutters, turning the dials. "Zero eight. Zero three."

I cross my fingers. Please God please God please-
The locker clicks open. I do a little cheerleading victory dance in my head.

"This locker is full of books." Steph says, her voice laced with disappointment. "What does she do with all this?"

I frown and look into the locker. It is filled with books, binders, highlighters and pens of different colours.

"Let me do this job," I order Steph. "You look out for people." She nods and turns away.

I stare at the locker. At one corner of the locker, plain white cards are piled up in a high stack. No wait, these are photos. A thin layer of dust covers the photographs. I take the first photo in my hand, wipe it with my hand and stare at it. A Polaroid shot of Brandon and Callaghan, side-hugging each other and looking cheekily at the camera. I frown, grab the rest of the photos and stuff them into my backpack.

Okay. Time for the job.

At my feet is a large opaque polythene bag, with a sick smell wafting out of it. Yesterday, Steph asked Anita to collect the worst smelling garbage there is in her house and leave it in front of the school gate at night.

I empty the contents of the bag into the locker, scrunching up my nose and slam the door shut.

I smile and hold out the bag for Stephanie to throw away. This was so easy. I missed this.

But Stephanie doesn't take the bag. I look at her and see her giggling into her phone, biting her nail.

"Stephanie," I glare at her. "Take it."

"Sorry," she smiles and snatches the bag. "Ugh, the smell."

"Wait," I frown. "Didn't I tell you to look out for students?"

Her eyes widen. My eyes follow suit when I hear laughter and shouts towards the entrance of the hallway.

Shit. Students.

We run towards the entrance as fast as we could and make it appear to the students that we, like them, are just entering. We take our places in front of our lockers, just a few feet away from L.30 and wait.

Fun's beginning.

Soon Michelle and Brandon enter the hall, laughing. I smile, waiting in anticipation of the oncoming disaster and pretend to talk to Stephanie. Michelle nears her locker and pauses a bit to playfully hit Brandon on the elbow. So short. Her hand reaches the combination lock and she enters her code. The locker opens. A crushed Diet Coke can tumbles out and falls near her feet. Her eyes widen and she squints inside. Then she screams.

I am jolted out of my imagination by the vibration of my phone. I switch it on.

Anita: theyre headin twrds the hall

I turn it off and inform Stephanie that they're near. I pretend to look at my phone so that I don't look like I'm stalking someone. And then they enter.

Brandon enters first, followed by Michelle, who walks with a spectacled nerd that I don't recognise. The nerd leaves her side to go to her locker and Michelle jogs to catch up with Brandon. He says something to which she giggles stupidly. They slowly inch towards her locker. A junior passes by, staring at me and l look down quickly to my phone.

"Okay, what the fuck?" Steph says suddenly. I look up.

What in the world.

Instead of Michelle opening L.30, Brandon walks in front of it and puts his hand out to enter his code. I look around and spot Michelle in front of Locker 34, already taking her books and binder out.

Shit shit shit shit shit no no no no.

Brandon opens his locker.

It all happens in slow motion. First an empty Skittles wrapper falls out and then a banana peel, a half-eaten apple and a Doritos wrapper fall out. And then everything starts falling out. No! Why is this happening?

Brandon stares at everything pouring out, too shocked to say anything, his mouth slightly open. Michelle runs up to him and pulls him back, telling him something. Brandon shakes his head and looks into his locker. Michelle hands him a pack of tissue and sends him off to the toilets. Then she looks into the locker again and does a strange thing.

She laughs. Apparently amused.

She spins and looks towards us. Stephanie and I turn around, our backs thumping against our lockers.

"What the fuck just happened?" I whisper. "Did Lana get the lockers wrong?"

Stephanie shakes her head. "Don't worry," she says. "Callaghan didn't spot us."

We wait for a few moments. Then I slowly look out, directly into a pair of brown eyes.

"Fuck!" I say, quite loudly. Callaghan looks at me and Stephanie and snickers. Wickedly.