Writer's Notebook

Arthur was easy prey. Not that he was stupid. Indeed, it took us a long time to find a way to get to him. I guess it was due to his secretiveness. He wasn't a popular boy, and was almost always alone. Being his next door-neighbour, I can probably claim to have known him as well as anyone, not that wasn't claiming very much. I've often wondered why we picked on him. He never did us any harm. I guess it's just part of evolution, the fittest taking it out on those weaker.

It was Arthur's sister who provided us with both the opportunity and the means. If anything, she was the worst of us all. I don't know what she was like when they were home, but in public she was ever tormenting the tongueless, little slug, as she alayxs called him. His parents, on the contrary, cherished and did what they could to encourage him to express himself. This included buying him an expensive leather-bound journal with a lock in which Arthur wrote every day. I learnt this from Maria the day she discovered that thanks to my brother, I was in the throes of becoming an accomplished lockpick. She had no idea what he wrote but was burning to find out, so together we hatched a plan. Arthur kept the journal locked up in the drawer of his desk at home. But Maria had the same desk and the same key. All we had to do was wait for an opportunity to get Arthur out of the way. This came sooner than expected, when Arthur blew up in class after being teased by one of the younger boys, I suspect at Maria's instigation. This happened quite often and the teacher found no better way of dealing with him than keeping him in the classroom for two hours after school.

To be quite honest, the journal made pretty boring reading. Arthur may have known how to write, but had nothing to say. Shakespeare himself would have had trouble making something of this guy's life. But one of the more recent entries contained the following:

"Enna walked home with me today. No idea why. She kept trying to talk to me. I felt afraid of her."

Looking back what we did was unforgiveable. We didn't mean any harm. But I'll never forget the interest that lit up in his face when I asked him if he didn't want to sign the ... Of course, he never even saw the carbon paper underneath the sheet he signed. Imagine our astonishment when, within a week of receiving that Valoentine's card, Arthur and Enna became an item.