Rob: A schizophrenic friend

Jed's family moved to our town last year. They came from the wilds of Lincolnshire. Sounded grim - no life there. And Jed is very sociable, tells these mad stories that make you laugh out loud. He's got a bit of a thing about space travel, he may be quite bright but he's not a swot.

His Mum is foreign, very glam - and friendly too. She always brings coffee and cakes for me and my mates when we go round to his place. I've only been round a couple of times lately because something weird has happened and Jed's not coming to school any more.

We were at a party recently. There were some older lads from the High End estate there and they were offering some weed. Jed hadn't smoked with us before; he seemed a little unkeen but we rolled a joint. Thing was, he didn't go mellow and chill with us, he went off somewhere. He came back sometime later to pull at my arm and say we should get away, something about a conspiracy. To be honest I didn't know what he was on about.

Creative Commons Image 150hp via Flickr
A broken iPod [Image: 150hp under CC-BY-NC-ND licence]

Then he was off school so I went round after a few days to see what was up. His Mum looked sort of dull; tired and a bit, well, scruffy, I suppose. But she seemed pleased to see me and I went in. Jed was in his room, he looked odd, a bit 'starey' and he talked rubbish - and it looked like he'd smashed his iPod.

It was scary. He changed subjects a lot and none of it made sense. He thinks Tony Blair wants him to design a spy satellite to fight terror. He can't come to school because the BBC want him to do the breakfast show instead of Chris Moyles. I didn't know what to say and left as soon as I could.

His parents rang mine and they want to talk to me about what happened at the party. I'm scared and I don't know what to say.

These stories are composites based on real experiences

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