Fear dispatched, Ellen settled into the evening’s normal pattern. She surveyed her contacts landscape. She googled a few of the song lyrics she didn’t recognize. She changed her own status to a Mystery Jets lyric. Shortly after, one of her regulars, chrisdbarclay_90, popped up. It was always gratifying to see how easily teenage boys responded to basic triggers.

chrisdbarclay_90: hey

chrisdbarclay_90: how u

It would take barely any time to type ‘how are you?’ Ellen thought. She and Chris (whom she had, in fact, met in real life) had started talking on MSN about two months ago, after meeting at the Regal. It had been a near-perfect evening: she and Kate had got in without being ID’d and when they got to the bar, they’d spotted a whole group of Rainham Boys, but not a single gaggle of Rainham or St James’s Girls. Ellen and Kate knew the boys were from Rainham because she recognized one or two of them from the bus home. Within about ten minutes, she and Kate had been invited to join their group and Ellen had spoken to Chris for a while. She’d actually fancied his friend more, but they’d swapped MSN names because everyone always did. The next day – a Sunday evening – he’d added her, and they’d been talking most evenings since, seemingly out of habit.

Out of habit, she responded.

miss_BehaviourX91: hey

miss_BehaviourX91: i’m good

miss_BehaviourX91: how are you?

She might as well set an example.

chrisdbarclay_90: yeah good we won at football

miss_BehaviourX91: oh nice

miss_BehaviourX91: well done

miss_BehaviourX91: what was the score?

Conversationally, this was rather scraping the barrel.

chrisdbarclay_90: 3 nil to us

chrisdbarclay_90: i didnt score but assisted on the second one which matty scored

Ellen didn’t know who Matty was.

miss_BehaviourX91: amazing!

miss_BehaviourX91: well done

Possibly a bit much. As he had just explained, he hadn’t actually scored himself.

chrisdbarclay_90: yeah really happy

chrisdbarclay_90: all the lads are gunna celebrate this weeknd at regal prob

chrisdbarclay_90: gunna go 2 sams first he has an empty

Maybe he would invite her to the parent-free drinks party.

chrisdbarclay_90: gunna be sik

Or not.

miss_BehaviourX91: nice one

miss_BehaviourX91: haven’t been to an empty in a while

Shit, did this sound like she was angling for an invite? Say something else!

miss_BehaviourX91: me and my friend kate are probably going to go to pulse

Saved.

chrisdbarclay_90: kool

chrisdbarclay_90: will u get fukd

chrisdbarclay_90: weve got 4 cans each for sams

chrisdbarclay_90: gonna be so wasted

This wasn’t worth the effort. Ellen minimized the window and scrolled through the rest of her contacts: owen_willett69 was online. Last week, they’d had a rather intense conversation about her dream first date, which had logged off promisingly.

owen_willett69: mebbe your dream will come tru one day ;)

They hadn’t spoken since.