Locker 1216 // ON HOLD

Locker 1216 (1)

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Chapter 1

It's sad to say that the name I was planted with is the most horrible name on the planet. Cordelia. It sounds like someone or something from a Shakespearian play. Who am I kidding; it is someone from a Shakespearian play. Cordelia was in Shakespeare's most famous play, Romeo and Juliet. She was a faithful servant of the Capulet household. Cordelia was kind and motherly however saw Juliet as a younger sister. You'll only read about Cordelia if you read the original plays, they don't show her in today's plays.

A person named Cordelia is a person who is loveable, virtuous and a woman of rare honesty. I was named after my grandmother and she was all of the above. Or so I am told. She passed away before I was born. The name Cordelia was given to her by her father who was a British prince. It is said that he met my grandmother Cordelia's mother when he went on vacation to America where he fell in love with my great grandmother – my grandmother Cordelia's mother – and returned to Britain with her however his family didn't approve of her because she had no title.

His love was too strong for her that he disobeyed his parents and left to live in America with his only love where they had their only child: Cordelia.

My surname came from my father: Francis Cassidy. He passed away when I was just five years old. It was in a car accident. My mum said that a careless driver drove through a red light and crashed in to my father's car. At the time, I wasn't so upset because I didn't know what was going on. I had always thought that he was coming back. I would sit by the window waiting for the day where my dad would drive his green car in our driveway. That day never came.

So, that's how I got my name. No matter how much I hate it, I still love it because of all the history it has in it. As much as I despise of such a name, I wouldn't change it for the whole world.

"Okay, Jason Handover will be handing each of you out your locker keys," Miss Fuffleberry, favourite teacher told the class, drawing her thin long fingers through her silky blonde hair. She's the nicest teacher in the whole of Frenchdale High. She's a young preppy blonde bubbly teacher and barely gets you in to trouble unless she snaps – when Miss Fuffleberry snaps, it's not pretty. I remember last year when she snapped for the first time. Everyone was shocked because it was so uncharacteristic of her. It was because Warren Cassava chose to ignore her throughout the whole entire lesson and let's be honest; no one likes to be ignored. It wasn't quite Warren's fault because he never talks, not to nobody. Not to the teachers, not to anyone.

I remember the only time I had ever heard him speak was the first day of the seventh grade. We had our chemistry class that day and we were assigned seats by alphabetical order and my surname being Cassidy got me planted next to him. Our chemistry teacher paired us and told us we'd be lab partners for the rest of the year. I had our apparatus set up all neatly and I had been the one to start working on mixing the chemicals and whatnots. "Are you gonna help me?" I asked him, annoyance in my tone. He didn't do as much shift, instead he stayed still. I flicked my hair behind my back and said, "Well?" His dark brown, almost black eyes shifted from the apparatus to me. And in response, twelve-year-old Warren said as dully as possible,

"No."

Ever since then, I've never heard him talk, never heard him laugh and to be honest I don't think I've ever seen him smile. I've always been startled by it, I've wondered whether he's just plain rude or completely misunderstood. Whatever it was, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to mix with him. So I didn't.

We stayed lab partners throughout the whole of the seventh grade and didn't speak. He never did the practical work – I did but we both got the marks. I didn't really mind sharing my answers with him, that way I could get on with my own work without distractions from anyone else.