Chapter 4 Behind the Screens Chapter 4 Behind the Screens

Bright had asked him to help solve this

Chapter 4
Henry
Henry’s fingers skimmed across the keyboard of
his home computer, opening files, closing files…
deleting files. He emptied his bin for the third
time that night, aware that things were never
actually really gone from the hard drive; things
could still be found if an expert dug deep enough.
There were ways to permanently delete stuff,
but he didn’t want to completely wipe his PC
clean. He had no need to anyway, he reasoned.
He was worrying too much, just because Miss
cyberbullying thing. No one was investigating him.
And what if they were? He had nothing to hide.
He tried another method of getting at the data
on some of the photos posted on social media to
embarrass Alice. There was nothing wrong with
the actual photos – it was just the captions that
had been added to humiliate her – that was the
problem. It was the malice behind posting these
images rather than the images themselves.
Anyway, there was no data that pointed to anyone.
After hours of ploughing through his files,
messages, emails and search history when he
could have been relaxing and gaming, he leaned
back in his chair, stretched and heaved a sigh.
There was absolutely nothing to incriminate
anyone. He guessed Mr Miles, their ICT teacher,
would come to the same conclusions as him.

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Chapter 4 Behind the Screens Chapter 4 Behind the Screens

*** She flicked her long hair over one shoulder and
tilted her head as she smiled sweetly at him. “So?”
At school the next day, he half-expected Alice
His throat felt dry suddenly, and he swallowed
or Colette to gang up on him and demand to know
hard. “Er, no, I couldn’t find anything to say where
if he’d found out anything, but it was Scarlet who
those messages and photos came from.”
wandered over before the morning bell went.
“Nothing?”
“Hi, how did your research go? Any luck?”
“No, not a thing.”
Henry’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “How did
She fixed him with a penetrating stare. “No
you know I’d been asked to look into... er...
trace at all?”
things?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
Scarlet squeezed his arm. “I overheard Miss
Her face seemed to relax. “Well, that will come
Bright asking for your help. Don’t look so worried,
as a relief to the person behind all this, knowing
I haven’t been spying on you.”
they can’t be traced. But no help to poor Alice and
He felt his face turning red. She had this effect
Colette… look, there they are.” She glanced
on him. She was the prettiest girl at school and
towards the school gates. “They are sweet, aren’t
had this way about her – making him completely
they? The way they’re walking around together,
lose the ability to communicate. She could
arms linked, best buddies again. That’s so nice to
probably ask anyone to walk over hot coals for
see, isn’t it?”
her, and they would.

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Chapter 4 Behind the Screens
Henry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to
say. He cleared his throat. “Er… yes, I suppose so.”
Scarlet touched his arm. “Aren’t you going to
give them the bad news?”
“At the meeting.”
Scarlet’s forehead crinkled in a frown. “What
meeting is this?”
“It’s a meeting with Alice and Colette, Miss
Bright, Mr Miles, Mrs Parsons and me. To report
back on what we’ve found out.”
“Which was absolutely nothing?” she stressed,
making it sound like she was accusing him –
double-checking that there was nothing that
pointed the finger at anyone.
“I really did delve into it,” he said. “I tried every
which way to get information off those images.”
“Yes, well, you would say that…”
“Excuse me?”
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“I wonder what Mr Miles discovered,” she
continued, giving him no chance to find out what
she meant by her comment.
His face burned. It sounded like she was
accusing him or blaming him. Defensively, he
argued, “He probably discovered no more than me.
I’ll know more when we have the meeting…”
“And that sounds like so much fun!” There was
no hiding the sarcasm in her voice.
Henry watched her go, his heart banging like a
drum. That girl had a bad effect on him, and it was
odd hearing her be so harsh – especially to him…
And she was being sarcastic too. That wasn’t like
her at all, and it left him feeling really unsettled.
***
The meeting took place just before lunch in
Mrs Parson’s science lab. Henry was the first to be
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put on the spot, explaining what he’d done to try
and discover data from the images. He explained
in what he hoped was easy-to-understand
language, trying to sound knowledgeable but not
incomprehensible. He concluded with the fact
that he’d found out nothing.
Mr Miles was more to the point. “Like Henry
here, I couldn’t find out anything either.”
Alice and Colette looked pretty disappointed
and glanced sadly at one another. Henry looked
away, avoiding their eyes.
“Girls,” said Miss Bright, “have there been any
more anonymous messages or calls?”
“Only one anonymous call last night,” said
Colette. “Dad answered my phone again, and the
caller hung up straight away.”
“I haven’t had any messages, or seen anything
on social media,” said Alice, looking worried, as if
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she was expecting a barrage of messages to come
pinging through at any minute. “I’m just kind of
waiting for them to start up again. The waiting is
almost as bad as actually receiving the messages.”
“Yes, after all these weeks, I can understand
that,” said Miss Bright, smiling sympathetically.
“What did I tell you!” Mrs Parsons announced,
looking pleased with herself. “Didn’t I tell you this
would all fizzle out.”
“Probably because they know we’re delving into
who they are,” Mr Miles concluded, folding his
arms.
Miss Bright sighed in frustration. “Well, I still
want to find out who the troublemaker is. They
can’t get away with this. They’ve been making
Alice and Colette’s lives a misery for weeks and
weeks. And now they think they can slink back
into the shadows.”
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Chapter 4 Behind the Screens Chapter 4 Behind the Screens

Mrs Parsons drew up her shoulders. “We’ve
done all we can, and I, for one, would like this to
end right now and put it behind us. Let’s get back
to concentrating on schoolwork.”
“If we let this drop,” Miss Bright argued, “what
message is that sending out to other bullies?
Whoever it is needs to face the consequences of
their actions!”
Henry watched the teachers arguing, in total
disagreement with each other. He wished he could
just get up and walk out of there. And then, as if
they realised they weren’t behaving like adults,
they all fell silent, and he guessed they must have
realised they were behaving like squabbling kids.
They all looked slightly embarrassed.
Miss Bright addressed the three students.
“Henry, Alice and Colette, get yourselves off to
lunch now. And thank you, Henry, for all your
help. It’s much appreciated.”
“It’s okay, Miss,” he mumbled, eager to get out
into the fresh air. He followed the girls out of the
room.
Alice glanced back at him and smiled. “Thanks
for trying, Henry.”
Colette looked a little sadly at him. “Yes,
thanks Henry. This has been the most awful time
for Alice and me, and it’s nice to know that we still
have some friends at this school.”
Her words made him feel weird – a bit sick to
the stomach actually.
“Er… no problem.”
He somehow felt that was the understatement
of the week.
***
Ideally, Henry wanted to spend the free time

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Chapter 4 Behind the Screens
after lunch in the ICT room. Kids were allowed in
there at break time, providing they didn’t go on
social media. Research, writing up stuff and actual
programming were all allowed. After the last
twelve hours he’d had, Henry just wanted to get
back to his ICT project – writing his own video
game. It was pretty complicated, not like the really
basic one he’d made in Year 7. It was fun, and he
couldn’t wait to get back to doing something
normal.
Reaching the ICT room, the last people he
expected to find there, lounging in front of a row
of PCs, were Liala, Pedro and their mates – who he
really couldn’t stand – Kirsty and Corinne.
“Henry will know!” Corinne called out across
the room.
“Know what?” he asked coolly.
“How to turn this thing on. Where’s the remote
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control?”
He rolled his eyes upwards. “It’s a computer,
not a television.”
The annoying double act giggled.
He was aware of Liala staring at him, a
mischievous look on her face. Pedro was staring at
her – staring at him. He tried not to let it bug him.
“Any of these computers free?” he asked,
knowing that none of these four had the slightest
interest in computers – except to watch videos.
“Well, we would be using them if we could turn
one on,” Kirsty announced, poking at the screen.
Henry groaned, “Don’t act dumb, you know
how to turn it on and sign in.”
“But we want you to show us. You’re a whizz-
kid at geeky stuff.” They giggled again.
Henry logged in for them, then glanced at Liala.
“Hi, are you okay?”
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Pedro answered for her. “She’s fine. You want
this computer? We’re just leaving.”
Henry wished Pedro would leave. He was
always hanging around Liala, just like the terrible
twins were. No one ever got the chance to speak to
her alone – her three annoying buddies were
always lurking in the background.
“How did the Geeks Are Us meeting go?” Liala
suddenly asked, her eyes flashing impishly.
He heaved a sigh. It seemed like the whole
school knew he’d been in a meeting with the
teachers. “It went okay, but I couldn’t help them.
There’s no way of finding out who’s been sending
anonymous messages or making the calls.”
“So, they covered their tracks well,” said Liala.
“Obviously, they are good at computer stuff – like
you, Henry!”
He couldn’t believe she’d said that, and his
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heart dropped like a stone. He stared at her and
just shook his head. He didn’t even try to defend
himself.
He felt everyone in the room turn to stare at
him. He glanced once more at Liala as he turned
and walked away. The mischievous glint in her eye
seemed to have diminished. That should have
been some consolation – but it wasn’t.
***
At the dinner table that evening, Henry pushed
the food around his plate, his appetite totally gone
as the conversations from today went round and
round in his head. And for her to speak to him like
that, after everything he’d done for her… that
really hurt.
“Not hungry, Henry?” his mum asked, frowning
at him. “Not sickening for anything, are you?”
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“No, I don’t think so.”
His dad glanced across the table at him.
“Everything okay at school? You look like you’ve
got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
He wished he had someone to talk this through
with, but the one person he thought he was close
to had shown her true colours today. Clearly, she’d
only been pretending to like him because she
wanted his help. What an idiot he was!
“Come on, Henry,” his dad continued.
“Something’s bothering you.”
He shrugged and ate a mouthful of dinner. He
wanted to tell them, he really did, but instead he
skirted around the main problem. “It’s just school
stuff.”
“What kind of school stuff?” his mum pressed.
“Give the lad a chance to get his thoughts
together, love,” his dad remarked.
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Henry took a deep breath. “A couple of kids
have been getting cyberbullied, so our form tutor
asked me and our ICT teacher to investigate and
see if we could figure out who was behind it.”
“And how did you get on?” his dad asked.
“Neither of us got anywhere.”
His dad continued staring at him. “And this has
upset you?”
“Kind of.”
“Well don’t let it put you off your dinner,” said
his mum, giving his shoulder a little rub.
His dad seemed to agree. “Absolutely. It’s not
your fault you don’t know who the bully is. Come
on, eat up.”
With a sigh, Henry tried to tuck into his meal,
but his dad’s words echoed through his mind.
Because, in fact, he knew exactly who the bully
was.
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*** Closing her mind to the promise she had recently

made – and was about to break.
In the far corner of the room stood a sturdy
She pressed C and typed: Call you later.
oak wardrobe, and on the top shelf at the very
Then A: Don’t come into school tomorrow. No
back was a shoebox. But there were no shoes
one wants you there.
stored in there now – there was something far
And H: Sorry.
more secretive.
The owner of the shoebox and what it ***
contained pulled on a pair of black gloves – a
Henry had been asleep for just over an hour
Christmas present from her mother last year.
when he heard his phone ping. He reached across
Silently, she reached to the very back of the
to it.
shelf and retrieved the shoebox. Sitting on the
He stared at the message and crazily, he
bed, she lifted the lid off the box and took out the
realised, his eyes began to sting.
small, cheap mobile phone.
He blinked rapidly, determined not to cry.
Tapping “messages”, she had a choice of three
Turning over, he drifted back to sleep.
contacts – no names, just one initial for each
By morning, Henry knew he had some decisions
person: A, C and H.
to make.
There was a shiny red stylus in the shoebox
too. Holding this, she hovered over the keypad.

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Chapter 4 Behind the Screens

And now you decide...

What should Henry do?

A) Talk to Alice

B) Talk to Scarlet

C) Talk to Liala

Go to en.fictionexpress.com and vote

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