Silent teen-ager, on a bet, has not talked since September.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

HADDONFIELD, N.J. _ For a guy who doesn't talk, Brett Banfe's awfully hard to shut up. Halfway through a year of not talking, the Haddonfield teen-ager clearly has developed superior coping skills.

Ask him a question, and his fingers move in a blur over his computer keyboard. After one screen fills, and the next, you might be tempted to interrupt.

Don't _ Banfe holds up a hand. He's not done yet. A couple of screens later, he rests his hands in his lap and smiles.

"Something I've learned," he has typed _ in a reply that ranges from the nature of love to the music of Phish _ "is that it's not what you say. It's who you are.... You don't have to sell the fact that you're such a great guy and you're sincere."

Back in August, it seemed as though Banfe was putting all his energies into selling himself. While trash-talking with a friend, the garrulous soon-to-be college freshman bet he could keep quiet for a year, starting Sept. 1.

There was a flurry of publicity _ Howard Stern, "Good Morning America" among others _ some of it skeptical of his motives and his willpower. How would he do, people wondered, once the spotlight flickered out, and he had to shut his mouth and let his fingers do the talking?

Banfe wasn't letting on, but he had the same fears.