Don't befriend the boy next door! Here are 10 reasons why.

I moved into a new house the other week. The estate agents had told me about the people who had lived next door but had left the other day as the eldest son had been convicted of murder. The agents though it might have put me off buying the house but for some odd reason, call it intrigue or a strange curiosity, it made me want to move in even more. After I had asked more about the case, I was given a letter from the previous tenant of the house, a teenage girl, which was addressed to me as the person who would be moving into the house next. Some of the words had been scribbled over and replaced with a note in red ink, which only made me even more interested.

‘FOR THE PERSON WHO WILL BE LIVING IN THIS HOUSE AFTER I LEAVE TOMORROW.

Top 10 reasons not to befriend the boy next door.

1. He has a bad taste in music. From what I can hear, which is everything since our windows are next to each other, he only listens to the top 10 hits of the week. (I don’t know if you like that kind of music, if you do, just ignore this point.) Now, that wouldn’t be that bad if the songs of today weren’t total trash, but it is, so that’s what I must deal with.

2. He keeps himself to himself. I don’t mind quiet people, I find them to be quite nice most of the time, but this is a whole new level! In the 17 years I’ve lived in this house I’ve never seen him leave his room except once but see point 7 for that story. He doesn’t seem to have many friends and everyone I know who have talked about him only know about him through rumours. No one, not even me, knows what he’s called!

3. He’s a loud person. I’ve already told you about the music but overall, he’s a loud person. He only shouts and he never just talks. I can hear him arguing with someone in his house (not sure who though) every night and when you’re trying to fall asleep after a long day of school, it’s not good.

4. He’s a bad kid. Even though he’s enrolled in my class at school, he never comes in. Everyone I’ve talked to says he just spends every day doing drugs in the woods behind our houses. The validity of these statements still needs to be assessed but I believe they are very much true since I’m quite sure I’ve seen him doing some suspicious substances in his room a couple of times. If these rumours are true, then stay away. You don’t want to get into that crowd of people, even if you think they’re cool.

5. He’s messy. If you take just one look into his room, you’ll understand what I mean. There are plates piled up on his desk and cups lining his window. I can see an ever-growing pile of dirty laundry in the far corner of his room and a rivalling pile on his deck chair.

6. He’s not into you. Believe me, I don’t think he wants to make friends. I’ve tried to talk to him many times, but I’ve been met with radio silences and middle fingers more times than I can count.

7. I saw his out with Miranda Johnson the other day and I didn’t like his manner. He doesn’t know how to treat a person nicely. I saw him and Miranda go into the ice cream shop on the seafront, well, he went in, Miranda was dragged in, and the whole time he was tossing abuse and profanities I hadn’t even heard of before at the staff. This behaviour continued even after Miranda and the boy had come out of the shop. He kept shouting at anyone who was directly in front of him, even those over 100 yards away.

8. Now all this could just be excused for bad temper if Miranda hadn’t gone missing that evening.

9. And I had seen him in his room, covered in blood.

10. And then her body was found dismembered on the beach the next morning.

I’m not saying that he did it, and I hope to god that he didn’t, but everything seems to line up. Detectives have been on the beach all day and just as I was beginning to write this letter for you (you’re welcome by the way) swarms of police cars have pulled up outside his house.

And now he’s being thrown into a police van, you know the big ones with the bars on the bars on the windows. I’m fairly sure he killed Miranda at this poi [Here the writing in the letter seems to stop. We assume the writer was interrupted.]

Big news! I found out his name, it’s [THIS NAME HAS BEEN REDACTED TO PROTECT THE IDENTITY OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED]. Quite funny. I expected it to be a much cooler name but hey, it’s better than having no name at all!

I doubt he’ll be coming back now, but I’ll still leave you this letter, just in case he does come back. You can ignore points 7-10 but still consider points 1-6.

From [THIS NAME HAS BEEN REDACTED TO PROTECT THE IDENTITY OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED]’

New people are moving into the house next to mine so luckily this letter didn’t make me too stressed. Even more, the newspaper that I bought from the store down the road last night had a two-page spread on the case. Turns out it had been the boy from next door who had done it, pretty scary news.

The news made me think about how much I don’t know the people in my area. Even though I moved in last week and I’ve met almost everyone in the town at my housewarming party, I don’t know them. Any of them could be hiding a dark secret…