Living For The Fog

A Game of Scrabble

After finally escaping the Nurse's room, I begin the journey to my locker just as the bell rings for lunch. Unlike most of the others I cannot and will not eat in the lunch hall. Reason (1) The food is disgusting, despite what everybody else says, (2) the hall is always extremely crowded with large (and sweaty) people meaning that (3) nobody will let you sit down unless you're considered one of the popular kids which (4) I am not. Therefore, I bring a packed lunch every day and leave it in my locker to be collected at lunch times and eaten in the music room with my sort-of friend, Grayham.

Grayham is a year 11 who has no friends. Despite having had his growth spurt he remains very unimpressive where muscles are concerned and has managed to retain just about every spot he has ever had. Like me, he will probably never get a seat in the lunch hall so he and I meet every lunch break in the music room where our music teacher, Miss Praycee, who takes pity on the likes of Grayham and I, allows us to eat. It might not be brilliant but it sure is better than the library.

Being a Library Dweller puts you at just about the bottom of the food chain. You can safely call anybody who spends their free time at school in the library a geek, nerd, dork or basically whatever you want since they're probably too scared of people to say anything to you anyway. The library is run by Mr Ferral who, though nice, will not let the noise level rise above 55 decibels meaning that any communication has to be in either whispers or notes, not really leaving any oppertunity for a long conversation.

When I reach my locker I see a whole group of people from my class standing by the lockers. As soon as I walk through them I can see what they're crowding for. All 16 lockers in the block have been spray-painted pink on the outside and the ones without locks have been opened and emptied out onto the floor, before being spray painted black on the inside. I thank my lucky stars that I invested in that expensive combination padlock. Over the front of all of the lockers the word "DORK" has been spray painted in black to match the insides of the open lockers. "Who the hell did this!?" somebody shouts. I quickly open my locker (combination: 4, 5, 1, 9, 3) and take out my lunch bag, lock it and start rushing to the music room. I can be there in two minutes to ask Grayham what happened if I hurry. But there's a piece of paper caught up with the bag. A small, bright green sticky note shaped like an explosion bubble. Inside is written " .... -.. . -... .. -. / .... - . / --- .-.. ... .... --- -.-. / - .- / .... . - .-. . / . -. - .-- -.-- / .... ... .. - / -. - . .- ..-. --- -. --- .-. ". I very nearly throw the paper in the bin untill I realise that this could be morse code. Unlikely but still, it would be cool to find out. I keep walking to the music room while looking at the note, but more slowly because I'm trying to decipher the code. I walk into a door. I look up and snap out of my daze, open the door and walk into the music room. Grayham is not there. I go over to a computer and log on (username: C.Miron865 - password: gsoqmetj66783) and go onto Internet Explorer, open google and type in "translation morse code". The website tells me to type in what I need translated, so I write the collection of dots and dashes into the box. The output is "HDEBIN/ HTE/ OLSHOC/ TA/ HETRE/ ENTWY/ HSIT/ NTEAFONOR" which is brilliant. I've been sent a message in morse code by some kind of mad person.

Despite this I jot the string of letters down on the other side of the paper and log off the computer. The only person I can think of who could work out what this means (and the only person who would bother helping me) is my brother, Harry. Although Harry is related to me, we don't look anything alike or act anything alike. Harry is 14. I am 15. Harry has had his growth spurt. I have not. Harry has had multiple girlfriends. I have had none. Harry is very fit. I am overweight and asthmatic. However, there is a single quality that Harry has that I am glad of above all else at this particular moment; Harry is good at scrabble.

"Good" is an understatement, in fact. Harry is gifted when it comes to creating a word out of a random string of letters. Once when playing a game of Scrabble, he played "Oxyphenbutazone" across triple word score squares and got 1,778. It's safe to say that I never played another game of scrabble with him ever. again. 

Right now, though, Harry is exactly who I need. I begin walking down to the main school building where Harry's form room is, on the second floor room 14. I reach the stairs and look up at the endless spiral of staircase after staircase. Why do schools have to be so high? Why can't we have a lift? I begin climbing the steps, counting as I go. Last time I got to 57 before I decided that counting was taking up too much energy and I stopped. When I was little I was quite fit, untill at the age of 6 and I broke both of my legs falling out of a tree. Obviously during the recovery process I couldn't excersize which made me gain a few pounds but even afterwards I refused to get active because I was afraid that I might hurt myself again. So since then I've been gaining weight untill I finally reached the impressive weight of 179 pounds at 5'3, giving my parents reason to be wholly unsatisfied with me. Also, I really like eating food.

I get halfway up to the second floor and pause for a few seconds to catch my breath. I look out of the window and see Grayham trailing behind a group of boys to the music room, momentarily feel bad for leaving him behind without telling him I wasn't going to be there, then continue up the stairs anyway. It isn't my fault he's late and I have more important things to think about. Like the fact that somebody bothered to write me a note in MORSE CODE! I mean come on, that's like the coolest thing anyone's done for me before.

At the top of the stairs I turn left and take another little break, but only a small one because I'm fuelled by the relief of not having to climb any more stairs and the excitement of working out the message. I walk, watching the numbers on the doors of the classrooms increase one by one untill I reach room 14. I look in through the tall thin window to check he's in there and then knock on the door as I see him with a group of his friends. Another boy answers the door. "Hi," I say. "is Harry in there?"

He looks me up and down like I'm a potential meal. Luckily he's hardly any taller than me and his face is covered in spots so I'm not intimidated. "Uh-huh. Why?" he asks, speaking like he wishes he's tougher than he actually is.

I reply "I'm his brother." causing his face to look distinctly shocked. Nevertheless he stepped aside to let me in. I walk over to Harry and tap him on the shoulder, he turns and looks down at me.

"Oh hey Casey! What brings you here?" I hate the fact that he's taller than me. He's my little brother, I should tower over him not the other way around.

"I need your help unscrambling some letters." I decide to keep it simple. I've already made up my lie; a friend found a note in his locker and couldn't decipher it, he isn't sure if it even means anything but I offered to bring it to you, Harry, my big little brother, my Scrabble arch enemy, because you're the only person I could think of who would be able to work it out.

Luckily I didn't need even need my lie in the end. It wasn't even that good anyway. "Lemme see then." I take the note out of my pocket and hand it to him, he studies it for ten seconds before telling me the newly created sentance.

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Hey guys! Soo, I've started writing some more on the book but I thought I'd give you a challenge. The first person who can decipher Casey's message gets the next part of the book dedicated to them! :D Good luck!

Also, I hope you like the new cover. I've also retitled the book because too many books start with "The" and I wanted to break the mould. ^_^

Remember: "HDEBIN/ HTE/ OLSHOC/ TA/ HETRE/ ENTWY/ HSIT/ NTEAFONOR"