The Last Breath Of Reggie Warrington

Chapter 11: The E Files

"He's gay?" Libby stammered, "but the girls? All those girls? Do they know? Is he bi?"

"I don't know and I don't care, what I want to know is what the Hell are the E Files?"

I felt I knew the truth about Ethan. He'd always been so distant, so alone. I thought about his first day at school. It was a Friday if I remembered rightly and the last day of term, which was odd. We sat in our form room with Mr Stephens reading through the register. Halfway through his sentence, the door flew open, banging against the wall. The class and teacher turned and stared at a tall boy entered. His black hair shimmered under the bright lighting and his bright, sapphire blue, eyes looked down at the floor.

The teacher stood up and began to stammer as he explained who the boy was. Ethan Campbell. He pulled the hood of her top up over his head and moved to the back of the class with his head down. Loner. That was the first thing that entered my mind. He looked like the sort who didn't have many friends. But to get to the back of the class, he had to walk past Libby and me.

Libby sat at her desk, completely unaware of his presence. I didn't think she cared, to be honest. A mountain of textbooks stacked up in front of her as she started her morning routine of organising her books in order of which class was coming up next. In all the years I'd known her, I never really understood why she didn't do that at home, the night before, but oh well. For some reason, most of her pile was on my side of the desk. I think she was trying to find something in her bag. Ethan strolled past. As he turned to sit in the seat behind us, his dark, heavy rucksack bashed into Libby's tower, sending it crashing to the ground.

Instead of picking them up, he just stared at us as if we weren't there.

I looked at my sister, "Lil's we need to know what the E Files are. Can you find them?"

My sister didn't look at me. The sound of her fingers tap, tap, tapping in the eerie silence, echoed through the room. Libby and I stared at the curser, watching it move swiftly across the screen and clicking on a file. A message reading enter password popped up and I let out a sigh.
"Now what?!"

Lilly thought quickly, and typed in the same password she used to hack into Reggie's laptop. Files appeared on the screen. Loads and loads of files. As she scrolled down, we must have seen well over thirty, each given the titled E something with a number beside it, such as 'E-1: the park', 'E-23: School.'

One especially caught my eye, titled, 'EPB-1'.
"What's that?" I asked and pointed to the screen. Lilly clicked on the pdf file and opened it.

It was a scanned image of something that looked a lot like a mobile phone bill. On the top left-hand corner was the address, 5 Bumblebee Road, Cranbourne CR44 7SM. It was addressed to Mr M, I assumed the surname was Campbell, but the words had got damp and the ink had run. I knew straight away it was Ethan's address. Lists of phone numbers along with dates and fines filled the page, but all I could think of was why, on earth, would Reggie have this information. As I say staring at the computer, the high pitched sound of Libby's phone pinging, snapped me out of my confused train of thought.

"Sorry," she said, "it's my Dad. He wants me to look after Millie this afternoon while he and Sandra go to her Mums for dinner. She's got tinnitus. Can't stand loud noises."

"Not many things louder than a screaming two year old who's teething." I said, "anyway, I think I've seen enough. Ethan's obviously gay. Reggie was right. Let's go. I've got to go to the station and give a statement anyway."

As Libby left the room and Lilly nipped into the en-suite to use the loo, it was left to me to log off, but just as I was about to, a thought popped into my mind. Reggie was always going on and on about glitter.com and how he'd been talking to this guy on there. From the gossip spread around the school, he and Reggie really liked each other

I did what every curious teenage girl, or anyone, for that matter, would do and typed Glitter.com into the computers address bar. A huge pink glitter background with equally glittery rainbow coloured lettering jumped out at me. 'Glitter.com, you can't get much fitter dot com, then the guys and girls on glitter dot com.' Catchy slogan, but I was more interested in Reggie's profile.

Username, well that had to be Reg-Bae, right? And password? Having known Reggie long enough to know his passwords were always either someone he hated or someone who had recently pissed him off, I quickly typed in the same password my sister used for the computer. CHLOCHLOISACOW. Enter. A huge Red Cross flashed on the screen. Wrong password or username. Right Chloe, if you were Reggie what username would you use?

The loo chain flushed and Lilly's footsteps headed towards the room. I had to think quickly and typed in the first username and password I could think of. R-B-69. It was the same username as his twitter account and his Instagram. Entering the same password, I clicked login and finally, I was in the strange world of Glitter.com. Reggie's profile was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse, but that wasn't what I wanted to look at.

The door opened. "Chloe, we need to go." By the look on Lilly's face, it was almost time for my dreaded police interview. Not that I thought it would be something to dread, I just didn't see why, when I'd already spoken to them at home, they needed to see me again.

I'd put everything to the back of my mind for about half an hour, but now it was time to face reality. I didn't think it would be hard, but I'd find out soon that actions have consequences.