This is Noah.
He’s your average 15 year old kid, with glasses and a button-down to prove it. Noah is not a suburban mom with a daughter named Brittney. Which is why it’s so weird he received this text message:
https://twitter.com/noahapaul/status/904819599895650304
Needless to say “Hugs and Kisses, Helen” was enough to send this wrong number text into the viral stratosphere. The Tweet quickly garnered 90,000 RTs and spread around the internet like wildfire. Everyone wanted to know what Brittney did, and if Helen would really have the gall — the outright audacity — to ban Christi from the cul-de-sac barbecue.
A few even wanted to get in on the action.
Then Noah shared an update, and the plot — like a cherry compote reducing on the back burner — thickened:
https://twitter.com/noahapaul/status/904865035784265728
Crime revealed. Stakes raised.
Noah had 24 hours to clean up this mess before the authorities would be called on some mom with no idea what was coming. Helen was lawyer-ing up, and 15 year old Noah was left with few options. He even tried to text back, but couldn’t:
Backed into a corner, an innocent woman about to be put in handcuffs, Noah was stuck. What would he do?
Well, unfortunately this is where the story get’s a lot less interesting. Noah told Buzzfeed News that the whole thing was actually just a prank being pulled by some of his friends. “The night before I went to a football game and I made a bunch of new friends,” Noah said. “I found out those friends gave another friend of mine my cell phone number without my knowledge.”
There was no Helen. There was no Christi. Disappointing? Maybe. But not for Noah. Now he’s the coolest and most famous kid at his school — a fact that he seems to be handling pretty well. “It doesn’t really matter that it wasn’t a real person, in my opinion,” he said. “I’m glad people got some laughs out of it, I sure did!”