Louder Than Words Read online

  ‘How could you do that?’ She wasn’t taking him seriously. I think she knew he was in earnest, but she just didn’t see how he could do it. Actually, I didn’t have a clue either.

  ‘Because he might think he’s a player online, but I’m very sure I can play rougher.’ Silas smiled that chilly little smile again that had been unfamiliar to me before today. ‘So you want me to do it?’

  Josie nodded, still not convinced he could make it happen. I thought differently – I had no idea what Silas was going to do, but if he said he was going to do something and it involved a computer then I was 100 per cent sure he could make it happen. I understood why Josie was sceptical: my brother didn’t look like your classic computer geek, but he was as gifted as the rest of my family, me and Dad excepted of course.

  Silas grinned. ‘Good!’ And I swear twin devils danced in his blue eyes. Now that look I had seen before and it made me grin.

  When we left the coffee shop, Lloyd and his mates were still hanging around the high street. Again I saw Lloyd run an assessing glance over my brother. ‘Doesn’t he know what a slut you are yet?’ he shouted to Josie. ‘Or is that what he wants?’

  ‘It’s not true,’ Josie muttered. ‘It’s so not true. I never slept with him.’ She chewed her lip. ‘I’ve never slept with anyone.’

  ‘She’s not that good anyway!’ Lloyd yelled to Silas.

  My brother held that impassive face with which he’d stared at Lloyd earlier, but those little devils were dancing again as he fixed his eyes on Lloyd’s T-shirt. Something about it seemed to please him. I couldn’t see what. It was just an average black T-shirt with some kind of graphic on the front and the words CODES OF WAR in yellow letters underneath.

  ‘Pwned,’ Silas whispered with a cold smile. ‘And you don’t even know it yet.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Female bonding, that was what Josie called it. It seemed in this case that meant us hanging out together on Sunday.

  ‘We’ll just chill and take in a film,’ she said, like it was just nothing to hop on a bus and grab lunch at the pizza place before the 2 p.m. showing, buy popcorn and sit in the reclining seats with a litre cup of Diet Coke.

  Well, it was nothing to her. To me, it was a first. Silas was more your ‘slob on the sofa at a mate’s house and watch a film there’ type of guy than the kind who went to the cinema. Consequently, unless there was something I really wanted to see, we never went. I think he’d taken a girl or two on a date there from time to time, but that was it. Silas would probably say he’d have taken me if I’d asked, but that I never did and I suppose that was true. I squirmed on the bus seat as I realised just how much of a hermit I was.

  And it was all my own fault.

  Josie showed me the app on her phone with the cinema listings. ‘Pick one,’ she said.

  I coloured up and shook my head, pointing to her to tell her to choose.

  ‘No way. You’re choosing this time. I’ll pick next.’

  Wow. There was going to be a next time.

  But wait! She was making me make the decision. Because that was another of those many, many things I didn’t do.

  My throat tightened in panic like it did when I tried to speak, but I didn’t want to admit how stupid I was so I pointed randomly at the list.

  ‘Cool,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘That looks good and the guy in it is verrrry hot.’

  I breathed out in relief. Partly because I’d made a good decision it seemed, but mostly and more bizarrely, if I had to explain my weirdness to anyone, because the decision-making was over. I was, I realised, more scared of making the choice than the consequences of what I chose.

  Now that really was screwed-up.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Josie asked. Perhaps more of my feelings showed in my face than I intended.

  I made to nod for OK but then . . .

  It was important to be honest – I felt that from Josie. She exuded the idea that friendship had to equal honesty or it wasn’t friendship at all. It was implicit somehow in her face, the way she stood; everything about her said it.

  When I realised that, I stopped wondering if she wanted to use me to get to Silas – it wasn’t in her make-up.

  ‘Why?’ There was curiosity but no scorn in her voice, which gave me confidence.

 

  I didn’t know if she’d understand that. I couldn’t have fitted those words to what my life had been until just that point, but it was suddenly and starkly true that I’d hidden myself in my silent world so thoroughly that I was practically a hermit.

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  Good question. Was it?

  No, I didn’t want a bubble life. Never to go shopping or have fun like going to get lunch and see a film. That wasn’t what it was about when I stopped speaking all those years ago, but somehow it had morphed into this without me being consciously aware of what I was becoming.

 

  She beamed that face-changing smile. ‘Good, because I don’t want you to be in a bubble either. We’d make a pretty good team, I think, me and you. I’ve kind of figured that you don’t have any other friends, do you?’

  I coloured bright red and shook my head.

  ‘Well, that’s OK because neither do I any more. I thought I did, but I found out very fast in these last couple of weeks that they weren’t real friends at all. Real friends wouldn’t have made assumptions like they did. Real friends wouldn’t have bitched behind my back. And they wouldn’t have dropped me out of their group like I had leprosy or something.’

  Nod.

  ‘So we sort of fit together, don’t we? OK, you’re younger than me but you’re pretty smart so –’

  Shake of the head.

  ‘You are. It’s obvious. You understand stuff, feelings and things. That’s just as smart as being like an A-star student at school.’

  Bigger shake of the head. I was in no way smart.

  ‘No, we did this in school! This whole thing about how your IQ isn’t that important because people with high IQs often end up being employed by a boss who’s not as exam-clever as them, but who’s really good at understanding people. Honest, it’s true! We did it in Careers.’

  Um, OK, I hadn’t come across that idea before. My face creased up in confusion as I tried to process, get her to understand . . .

  ‘Your phone – use your phone,’ she reminded me.

  Of course. I swallowed and prepared a text. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share this with her. I was just so unused to it that it felt as off balance as driving on the other side of the road.

 

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know why that is yet, but I’m not buying that you’re not good with people.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘There must be a really good reason why you stopped talking, but now isn’t the time to, er, talk about it!’ She laughed. ‘We get off here.’

  As the afternoon wore on, I began to think Josie might be right. We did seem to sort of fit. Or at least she seemed like she had fun too, hanging out with me. And there was another thing. Josie talked lots. ‘My dad says I have verbal diarrhoea,’ she told me. And I didn’t, so perhaps that worked better than anyone could have predicted.

  I noticed, when we got pizza before the film and on the bus home afterwards, that she talked about her dad a lot.

  ‘He’s a policeman. Loads of people have been funny with me about that. Always making little digs that are supposed to be jokes, but it shows that they don’t quite trust me because of his job. That might be part of why I was so stupid about Lloyd – trying to prove something, but I’m not sure if it was to them or to myself.’

  But she never mentioned her mum.

 

  ‘My mum died when I was seven. She had cancer.’

 

  ‘No, it’s fine. It was a long time ago and of course I still miss her, but it’s OK. I don’t get upset about it now.’
>
  So that was something else we had in common – only one parent each.

  ‘You and Silas seem . . . hmmm, like you don’t get on with your mum so well. Or have I got that totally wrong?’

 

  ‘What about your dad? Silas said he left?’

 

  ‘Now I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you OK with that or do you miss him lots?’

 

  There was much more I could have said, like how my mother might have had a whole bunch more of us because she swore that being pregnant enhanced her creativity and she loved the feeling of forming a new life inside her, a whole new kind of artistic creation. But she was a lot less enchanted with us when we came out. Snot-nosed toddlers with sticky fingers obviously didn’t inspire her in the same way. Her interest in us when we were small had waned by the time it came to Silas and me even more so than for our brother and sisters. For the others, it returned as they got older and their gifts became apparent, but not with me obviously. I was just the weird but boring one.

  ‘Is your brother serious about stopping Lloyd?’ Josie asked me as we walked back home from the bus stop.

  Nod.

  ‘But how? I mean, what can he do?’

 

  ‘That’s pretty nice of him,’ she said, half puzzled, half impressed. ‘You’re lucky to have a brother like that looking out for you. Makes me wish I had one instead of being an only child. I always thought they’d be a nuisance – you know, picking on you and stuff. But yours seems pretty cool.’

  Yeah, he was. I was lucky. Him not so much, having to put up with me tagging along after him. I could see why Josie liked Silas. Most people liked Silas, but obviously if you were Josie, you’d like him even more – standing up for you when all the other boys were just horrible. I couldn’t see what she saw in Lloyd at all now after how vile he’d been when we saw him. Even if he was quite good-looking, however did she think he was nice and worth loving?

  But I’ve learned that you’re blind most of all to what should be right in front of your face.

  I collect truths. I write them down in a book I keep hidden under my bed. And that thought right there is one of them.

  CHAPTER 6

  It was at school that I had the first inkling of what Silas had done. It was lunchtime and I was sitting in the corner of the library, reading a book, when Toby and a group of other sixth-form boys rushed in and clustered round the computers.

  Toby sat down and typed furiously. I was only a couple of metres away, though of course they paid no attention to me. I knew enough from Silas to see Toby was breaking through the school security via a proxy site.

  ‘So you remember Josie whose ex posted those pictures of her? Well, someone’s really mad at her ex because you won’t believe what’s going on with his website and stuff.’

  Rachel and her friends came in at a more leisurely pace and stood behind the boys, and then I saw my brother ambling over too, not a care in the world, totally laid back.

  ‘Look at this!’ Toby laughed and they crowded closer. ‘Someone really knew how to take him out hard. And fast. I can’t believe how this thing has spread.’

  Behind them I craned my neck, trying to see through a gap.

  ‘What thing?’ Rachel demanded, fed up with his failure to get straight to the point.

  ‘Patience, patience, princess!’ Toby said.

  She snorted. ‘This is why you don’t have a girlfriend, Toby! Patronising jerk!’

  He grinned. ‘Thanks, babe, and I love you too.’ He clicked on something and they all gasped.

  I was momentarily distracted by the horrible thought of Toby as a boyfriend, but then I scooted round in the chair for a better view. Only Silas noticed, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  The gasps turned to laughter. On the screen was a gigantic picture of a naked Lloyd . . . having sex with another naked Lloyd. It was laid out like a demotivational poster with the caption underneath: ‘Because nobody else will have me.’

  Toby clicked again and the page changed to a picture of Lloyd feeling a pair of enormous boobs that he’d suddenly sprouted: ‘The only ones I’ll ever get near.’ And then the page changed again, and again – a long series of pictures of Lloyd or whoever with Lloyd’s head superimposed, all with one thing in common. They made him look like the dumbest thing ever.

  ‘Wasn’t this the website he set up to trash his girlfriend?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Yup, and now he’s had the deed turned on him. Comprehensively.’ Toby clicked off a picture captioned ‘Micropenis’ as the girls snorted with laughter.

  ‘How?’ Rachel asked, trying to stop laughing long enough to speak.

  ‘Hacked,’ replied Toby. ‘And either he doesn’t know it yet or whoever did it has locked him out of his own stuff because he hasn’t tried to fix it. Here, check this out – it links back to his Facebook page. Look how many people have left comments already. It’s only been up a few hours and . . .’ Toby paused and looked up, shocked. ‘Seriously, this is hardcore. It’s all over the net already.’

  ‘Good,’ Rachel said savagely and there were murmurs of agreement from the other girls.

  I cast a sidelong glance at Silas who was wearing the most innocent face imaginable.

  ‘Don’t you think whoever did that must have had some serious skills?’ Toby asked my brother, as the acclaimed computer guru among the boys.

  Silas shrugged. ‘More than this Lloyd anyway, and the right software to do the job.’

  ‘Can’t wait to see what happens next,’ Toby said gleefully as he clicked on one more page, with Lloyd’s head on the body of a magnified mosquito and the caption: ‘Does a lot of buzzing to get noticed, but when he is . . .’ the image rolled over to a splat on a desk ‘. . . he gets slapped down and squashed dead.’

  I sidled up behind Silas and prodded him. He drew me away from the others who were still grouped round the computer and gave me that smile. ‘Oh, believe me, that’s nothing yet. Toby doesn’t know the half of it! Watch this space.’ He winked and then whizzed off back to the sixth-form block before I could interrogate him further.

  When they’d all gone out again, I checked my precious new phone and saw a message from Josie:

  I bit back a smile of amusement. I probably shouldn’t laugh. Something about all this made me feel nervous, as if it could all turn very nasty. But another part of me was thrilled Lloyd was getting what he deserved.

  I did smile as I sent the response. I liked how understated it was. So few words and so much said.

 

  A huge grin burst out over my face at her answer, until I looked up and found two of the girls in my year watching with their mouths open at the sight of me texting and grinning. I doused the smile from my face and quickly rammed the phone back in my bag.

  CHAPTER 7

  Josie came round after school and I whisked her upstairs to my room – that was what normal people did, right? – before my mother, who was rearranging pictures in the sitting room, could pass comment.

  ‘It’s all over school,’ said Josie, flopping breathlessly on to my bed as if she’d run here the whole way. ‘Loads of people were watching Lloyd’s stuff because they thought the whole thing with the pictures of me was excellent drama, and so now they’ve all seen it. They’ve been tweeting about it all day and this afternoon a Twitter account appeared under Lloyd’s name, linked to his website and other stuff, and it keeps tweeting apologies to me and saying what a total dumb-ass he is and please, please forgive him. Lloyd never even had a Twitter account. But if that was your brother, how did he do that from
school? Don’t you have security?’

  I smiled and rolled my eyes. The school system was nothing that Silas couldn’t get around in a few minutes. The laughable thing about my school was it didn’t even teach computing as an A level because it was considered too ‘new’ a subject for the universities to take it seriously, so all the computing geeks did maths and further maths. We only did a piddly bit of ICT up to GCSE. What this meant was that there wasn’t a teacher in the place who had a clue how to stop Silas – or anyone – on a mission.

  ‘So it was him then!’ Josie grinned. ‘Look at this.’ She showed me a series of text messages on her phone, from Lloyd. To say he wasn’t happy was an understatement. The amount of abuse he was giving her made me quite angry and I almost growled as I read the messages. ‘Oh, don’t worry about him. I told you – I don’t give a toss about him any more so I don’t care what he thinks of me. I just wanted it to stop.’

  Yes, but what if Silas actually made it worse by making Lloyd so mad he did something even more awful?

  She saw my worried face. ‘Don’t – I’m sure if your brother can do all this, he can cover his tracks so Lloyd doesn’t find out it was him.’

  Actually and surprisingly, it wasn’t Silas I’d been worrying about but she didn’t need to know that. There was no point making her nervous when she obviously hadn’t thought of that possibility, and she looked so happy.

  ‘It is very, very awesome of your brother to do this.’

  Yes, it probably was, but I didn’t like the kind of hero-worshipful face that had appeared on Josie. I wanted to tell her that she really should not fall in love with my brother out of some misguided sense of gratitude. Because you see, Silas does not fall in love back. No girl ever touches his heart. He isn’t mean to any of the girls he dates. No, it’s not that. But they always end up the ones who get hurt when he realises they like him more than he does them. He tries to break it off gently, but it never works out like that.