THREE

James sat in his room that night. He didn't turn on his computer, he didn't put on any music and he didn't even touch his guitar. Proping his head up with his elbows, he slouched at his desk and examined the note he had received that day.

Hey James, how are you? I'm mokay I guess. Notheng is reeally happening in my life, justt the samme all stuffe, you know? I was wondiring if I could borrow you're history notes on the Frennch revolution. Mine has gaps all over the place. It nether get any neeter either. Are you going okays witth the english essay thats duu on mondday? I would have thouyht so, your arghuemants are allways welll thought oat. I haventt started yet, but I'm sure it'll be allright. Yuu are ann awecome pershon James. Don't change, not for anyone. Well, I'll see you round sometime.
Sarah.

He read it through a few times and then scrunched it up and threw it in the bin. He wondered why Sarah would need to put her real message through coded mis-spellings. and why she had put that corny ending on it. She could have said a million things to substitute the "unch" in but she didn't. Maybe something really bad had happened. He shook his head and turned on his computer. Soon he was lost in a world of artificial violence.
James and Sarah had been friends since year seven. They had both been dismissed from the reading classes because they had already read all the books for the year in a space of four weeks. So they were trusted enough and left unsupervised in the study hall to do any extra work they needed to get done. Sarah didn't really like James at first as he came across as a dull kid with little interest in anything. She thought it was surprising that he had read all the books in the same amount as she had and was slightly suspisious of him. But one day he spoke up out of the silence that they had sat in nearly every period they'd shared in the room.
"You know, I'm not really as boring as you think I am" he said with his head down, still scribbling away in his note book.
"What?" Sarah was taken aback "I never thought you were boring."
"Oh sorry," he looked up "I didn't mean to accuse you, but you never tried to make conversation with me so I thought you were boring and didn't want to talk to you. But then I thought you could be thinking the same thing about me. I seriously can't stand the silence, can you?"
Sarah stared at him and then blinked.
"Yeah, it's almost haunting. Sorry... I was thinking that you were kind of dull" She let out a feeble laugh.
James laughed, but a real, strong laugh.
"So you like music?"She asked.
"I think EVERYONE likes music. I've just started learning how to play guitar but, I'm not very good. Nothing like the awesome Led Zep."
"Ohh... my dad has one of their albums... they're ok"
From then on they talked in study hall and occasionally outside, although not enough for people to get any ideas. Neither of them really wanted gossip going around about them. But that didn't stop anything.