access denied

“Access Denied” croaked the tinny voice for the umpteenth time. I sat back and gazed up at Joey.
“Try again” he said.
I groaned. We weren’t getting through. It was obvious. Why wouldn’t he just give up? I tried again anyway, but the same two dreaded words flashed up on the screen.
“Joey?” I said “Can I ask you something?”
“Hurry up Will!” He urged “We don’t have all night”
“We’re locked in a school” I pointed out “We have all the time we need.”
Joey bit his lip. He was two years older than me, Fourteen, but he was sitting his GCSEs early. All this fuss couldn’t be good.
“I just need it” said Joey eventually “Hurry up.”
I tried again, but the computer gave the same response. I sighed.
“Is it something to do with Lexey Huddeles?”
Joey blushed “No!” he said a little too quickly
I grinned “it is, isn’t it!”
“Just leave it!” Joey snapped
I turned to the computer “You know, cyber stalking is really freaky”
“It’s not cyber stalking!”
“It’s on the computer” I said slowly
“Yes”
“And it’s stalking” I said
“No it ain’t!” cried Joey
“So it’s cyber stalking!” I concluded
“Shut up and hack, Will!” Joey yelled
“Ok,” I said quietly. I tried once more and this time I was relieved to see the words ACCESS GRANTED flash up. I grinned. Maybe now Joey wouldn’t kill me. He pushed me out of the seat and dived onto the seat.
“Next time you ask me to do something, I ain’t doing it.” I said, but he wasn’t listening.
I stood up slowly, and stood  limply behind him. The lights were off, so the image on the screen glared out at me. Joey clicked down the website, and I looked at the pictures, grinning. Lexey Huddles.
“Told you”
“If you breathe a word of this to any one” hissed Joey “I will have Nathan Aven at you within twenty four hours, and I cannot guaranty your safety, kid”
That was the thing with Joey. When he wanted you help, he was kind, helpful and you believed he was your friend, the next minute he acted like he didn’t even know you. That’s the thing with the populars. You couldn’t tell if they were you’re actual friend. The only real friend Joey had was a boy in his year named Jule Simmonds.
Jule was down stairs, in the canteen, raiding the food stores. I would have gone with him. Joey isn’t the type of person you like to be alone with, but Jule isn’t the most socially welcoming ether.
I heard Jule before I saw him, clattering up the metal stair case and pushing open the library doors. He was one of those people who don’t like to be ignored. He burst into the room and pushed me out of the way.  Joey quickly exited the site and turned to Jule.
“What the hell is the matter with you!” Joey cried, standing up quickly
“I was in the kitchen...” he explained
“Yes” said Joey slowly, as I stood up once more
“And I heard this noise...” Jule continued
“Oh, Jule. Are you seriously trying to scare us again” Joey sighed “For goodness sake! You are not very funny”
“No, I’m serious” Jule cried “I heard the noise and I went to look and there were these people...”
“Oh, because we’ve never seen people before” I muttered
“If you’re not gonna shut up and listen I’ll shut you up” Jule snarled “Anyway, these people aren’t normal”
“Neither are you” I commented
“I’m serious kid.” Jule warned “Joe why is he even here?”
“Get over the nerd and tell me what’s weird with these people” Joey said, his voice filling with anger and impatiens
“These people ain’t got no faces” Jule said
“Those people have not got any faces” I corrected
Jule snapped. Within seconds my feet were lifted off the floor. He pushed me against the wall and I saw Joey grinning behind him. With Jule’s other hand, he punched me, then let me fall to the floor. He turned back to Joey.
“Yeah, whatever, and they just mumble and shuffle around and they’re really weird” he continued as if nothing had happened
“Ok then,” sighed Joey “we’ll come and see these scary people but when theres nothing there I’m not going to be happy”
“What do you mean we?” I asked “I ain’t coming”
I had already spent too much time with the weird duo that evening, and I wasn’t planning on sticking with them any longer than I had to. We may have been locked in the school but that didn’t mean I had to be in the same room as them.
“No one actually asked you to” snapped Jule “And no one actually wanted you there ether”
They left, the door slamming behind them. I sat and listened as they stepped quickly down the stairs, then jumped onto the computer. Time to find out a little more about Joey Partrue.
I wasn’t sure why Joey had asked me. I barely knew him. I wasn’t popular, and most people wouldn’t even look twice at me. I was a the nerdy kid that sat at the back of the class. You know the type; longish black hair, thick rimmed glasses, freckles, still with the voice of an eight year old. There’s one in every year. I managed my way without getting really picked on by doing everyone’s home work. I was cheap, real cheap, and most of the populars in my year came to me, even some in the year above.
I knew very little about Joey. He was the popular, the one all the girls crushed on, the one everyone wanted to be friends with, very clever, a great musician, artist and fairly good at sports too. Almost the complete opposite of me. Apart from the facts that everyone knew, I knew little else. I knew a few things only few knew. He lived with his uncle, a jolly man in his thirties, his mum and dad having died a few years before. He was an only child,, and spent most of his time out. He lived on Grange Street, a fact very few little people knew. I only knew because I lived next door. His uncle and my mum talked a lot. It was through her I found out that Joey actually lived there.  Outside school, I never saw Joey. I presumed he was at Jule’s. It wasn’t like I expected Joey to knock for me. Cool kids like him don’t knock, they get knocked for. I just expected him to see him through the kitchen window or something, reading at the table or eating beans on toast, but he was never there.
On the computer, I logged on to BlogSpot the teenage socializing site. Everyone at my school was on it and most of their blogs were free and open to anyone to look at. There were some where you needed a password to get on their blog. They were the populars or the real losers who got cyber bullied. Joey was one of those people and I had a feeling his password was because of the former reason.  Quietly, I typed in a few things and manage to break Joey’s code. It weren’t really hard once you knew how to. Silently and undisturbed, I scrolled over Joey’s BlogSpot page, but found nothing interesting. If you were clever, you wouldn’t announce something really juicy and private on BlogSpot, even if you did have an unbreakable code, which no one had.  If you were going to put something private on, you would announce it Natter. Natter was a socializing network where anyone from around the world could see your blogs without your permission. The thing was, no one from school was on Natter, because it was really rubbish, which meant no one found out what you put on it. I was on Natter, but I wasn’t sure if Joey was.
I logged onto my Natter and searched for Joey....