Surviving the Mockingbird

Candy's Locker... 10

My katana, my ugly-ass ruby red boots, and I almost swaggered down the hallway. My katana was out and at the ready and I set a faster pace for the group. We had spent too much time lingering at my locker. We were back in our diamond formation with me in the lead. We kept going straight and then took a right, making our way in a circle around the school. I was starting to get a little edgy. Soon enough, we’ll have doubled back on ourselves and we’ll be right back at where everything started; the classrooms.

Sure enough, the main hallways ended with the number 1310. We had to lead ourselves farther away from the safety of the cafeteria, of open spaces. I slowed down and started to proceed with caution. We had to go around a blind corner to get to more lockers. Hiding along the wall, I poked my head out just barely along the edge so that I was just able to discern that no one—or noting—was there. I looked back at the others and waved my hand. We all walked over to the lockers.

Candy reached her hand out and trailed it along the wall of metal as we whispered out the numbers to find number 1339. Taking another left found us a dead end with a single door and only a few lockers on either side.

“Wow, this looks great,” I heard Crank mutter under his breath. I swear, the kid learned how to whisper in a saw mill, he’s so loud.

Candy put a finger up to her lips to shush him but instead pointed to the locker directly beside the door on the left. “That one’s mine…”

I looked at her. “Go get’em, Candy.” She shook her head.

“Don’t wanna,” she mumbled, slinking down inside her dirty sweater. “Don’t wanna.”

Clev rolled his eyes, Crank scowled, and I sighed. “C’mon, Candy, you can do it,” I cajoled. “You know you can. It’s as simple as turning the knob; didn’t you just see me do it? Nothing bad’ll happen.”

Clev leaned closer to Candy and started speaking in a theatrical, spooky tone of voice. “What if… he didn’t mess with Tomboy’s just so he could lure you into feeling safe with opening the locker,” Clev’s voice gradually got lower and lower and Candy had to strain to hear him.  “And when you least expect it… BAAAAM!” he yelled. “He’ll blow you to pieces!”

Candy flinched and sniffled, her eyes all big and wide and misty. “S-s-s-stop it, you, you, you meanie face!”

Clev grinned, satisfied.

Crank and I rolled our eyes.

“Okay, now that you’re done being a dick, Clev, can we please try to convince Candy that she will not be blown to smithereens by opening this locker door? Or any other locker for that fact?” I frowned and gave Clev a piercing look. “Ya know, you probably just traumatized her for life. She’ll probably have nightmares and it’ll be your fault.”

Clev grinned again. “Good.”

“Not if her screaming interrupts my sleep,” Crank warned him. “If I wake up because of her, you’ll be hanging from the flagpole.”

“Crank, if we actually get something to wake you up and shut up your thunderous snoring, we’ll have found the greatest weapon of all time,” I smirked.

“Damn straight,” Clev snickered. “It would probably be so loud that it could cause earthquakes.”

“Okay, okay, calm down, guys,” said Candy, holding her hands out.

Crank had the grace to look completely unruffled at being the butt end of our jokes even though Clev and I were still winding down from the laughter. “Thank you,” he said pointedly to Candy. Candy grinned wickedly.