RIC

Is there anyone there? ... but he read no further. It was some bit of unfinished school work. His finger was on the button to erase it when new words flickered into life at the foot of the screen: wait wait wait!!!

No capital letters, he noticed - Bob Harte was an English teacher. He thought he must have accidentally touched the scroll button but the message ended there. He went to the top of the page and read it all, down to Answer me. Please! It was a meaningless paragraph. He sighed, closed his eyes, and yawned. When he opened them, the screen was blank ... except that new words were unrolling: mr harte its about me it is it is!!!

No punctuation worth thinking of, but a clever student nevertheless. Some young dog of a trickster had him under observation from somewhere outside and was tapping away on a laptop. He pushed back his chair and was about to step to the window to look out when it happened again. 

Dont go mr harte dont go!

In spite of himself, Bob was amused. He sat at the keyboard and typed: 'You're improving, but you should put an apostrophe in don't.'

Don't worry, Mr Harte, I'll get it right if you stay to listen. 

R - What distracted Mr Harte from looking out of the window?

I - Towards the end of the extract, why do you think Bob becomes amused?

C - Which word in the extract is similar in meaning to pointless?

Now read chapter 16 of our class novel. 

Please update your detective notebooks with any updates from recent chapters.