Forget Me Not

Two bricks shy of a load

Hedwig isn't exactly a gem. She often fantasizes about bulldozing a kindergarten full of innocent children and scattering roses on her crime scene for both the aesthetic and a dramatic effect. She has been a real pain to deal with ever since she was a child, with her mischiefs turning into misdemeanors and even felonies the older she got.
          She got out of her first fight with a broken nose when she was five years old (though her opponent suffered damage a lot more severe in the cognitive department), deliberately ruined her schoolmates' belongings multiple times during her middle school years with a side of numerous suspensions from assaulting teachers and other pupils, destroying school property and, once, hanging a dead rat above the blackboard in her classroom. Besides her being an awful student, she also put several dents in the car of a man who catcalled her and had a brief period of kleptomania. Her parents tried all sorts of therapies and made up all types of house rules in hopes of bettering their out of control daughter, but nothing ever seemed to work. Instead, it seemed like it was all just making her angrier. By now you've probably put two and two together and realized she might have slight (read: severe) anger issues, though, in her own words, "At least I'm not a fockin' snitch", referring to a schoolmate, Mandy, who went crying straight to her parents after Hedwig "allegedly" pushed her from the top of the stairs.
             Hedwig's mother, May, is an accountant at a has-been firm, with a minimum-wage salary and an obsession with fridge magnets. She buys one wherever she goes, though most of them are from Chelmsford, the town where she lives, since a pricey vacation to the Bahamas or the Caribbean isn't really an option. Her most prized magnet from Florida was actually acquired through her brother, Harry, who won a plane ticket to Miami with a paid one-week stay at a local hotel on a radio show. He was astonished at how different Miami was from his hometown in the UK and how flip-flops are the most common shoes that Floridians use almost all year round, which, of course, for rainy England, isn't possible. May has been having a very difficult time trying to manage her daughter's daily mischiefs while maintaining an acceptable reputation for herself, and with her husband being henpecked, the pressure of keeping her household in one piece was even bigger.
          Stephen, Hedwig's father, is a very religious man, but he's more so blindly believing in it than anything else. He went to an all-boys Catholic school as a child and, not being one with the brightest mind, he stuck with Christianity mostly because he didn't know there was anything else to believe in. So you can imagine what went through his pure, God-serving mind when his daughter started acting like the Antichrist himself. Albeit, instead of calling an exorcist or anything drastic, he was convinced it was his fault that Hedwig was her aggressive self, as when Stephen was still in school, he had an affair with one of his schoolmates. After being beaten by his teachers and then bullied, he realized what a horrible thing he'd done and he is now confident that only his prayers, apologies and an occasional food offering to the Big Man upstairs is the solution.
              "Fockin' useless piece of shite,'' Hedwig murmurs to herself as she unsuccessfully tries to chain her barely functioning bicycle to a metal pole in front of her high school. She gives up, throws the chain on the floor and kicks her bike for good measure. It's an unusually warm and sunny morning for Chelmsford, but for Hedwig, today is just like any other day: Hell. She is late to her first class of senior year, but, in a careless manner, she strolls towards the big, square building with windows the size of refrigerators and a grey façade that beautifully compliments the dead atmosphere of the institution's interior. Depressing, really. As she makes it to her classroom, she aggressively turns the doorknob, startling her class, which, for Hedwig, is always a plus.
             "Late again Hedwig, are we?" says Hedwig's English professor, Mrs. Linda Chatty. "If you can't take it upon yourself to actually be on time for once, at least enter quietly. Your Devil complex is getting old."
              As per usual, Hedwig attracts the stares of just about all her classmates and as she takes slow steps towards the back of the class, ignoring her professor, choosing which seat she'd occupy today, she looks towards the spot at the very right by the windows.
            Approaching, she says "Piss off," to Adam, a self-proclaimed "bad boy" of the school, who was sitting in the seat she desired.
             "Or what, you fucking weirdo," he scoffs and turns to his friends, laughing.
              Without any hesitation, Hedwig picks up Adam's bag and turns it upside down, his belongings hitting the floor, including his computer, now smashed into pieces. Hedwig smirks, excitement filling her body. She loved pissing people off more than she enjoyed not being a model citizen.
              "Bruv what the FUCK?!!!" Adam stands up, nostrils flaring and his knuckles turning white. "You're gonna pay for that or I swear down mandem's gonna beat the fuck outta you," He charges towards Hedwig with full force but without success, as Hedwig lunges to the side, letting Adam run uncontrollably to the other side of the classroom, impacting the shelves on the wall, where Hedwig proceeds to repeatedly punch him in the abdominal area, focusing greatly on his liver.
             "Hedwig! That is enough! Principal's office, now!" Mrs. Chatty shouts, approaching Adam, who is now laying on the ground, crying in terror and embarrassment. Luckily, he wore his brown pants to school.
             "Ah fuck that, I ain't gonna go," says Hedwig, standing up from above Adam and crossing her arms in a defensive manner.
              "I have got half a mind to-"
              Suddenly, a brick shatters the window, glass shards cascading upon the broken pieces that were once Adam's laptop. The brick's trajectory was interrupted by the display case, the glass of which was also shattered.
              "Yoooo, that is well bad miss," Hedwig laughs as she picks up the brick, carefully brushing off the glass. "Shit, there's a message."
              She unfolds the paper and blankly stares at the words written on it.
It's not a message, it's a warning.