Peyton K. M.CHAPTER ONE
How It All Began
It was Sam Sylvester, a teacher at Hawkwood School, who started the trouble. Just along the road from Hawkwood there was another school called Greycoats. Parents paid a lot of money to send their children to Greycoats, and the children there were clean and tidy, wore expensive clothes, and did well in examinations.
At Hawkwood the parents did not pay any money and the children were much better at fighting than at passing examinations. They were happy about that. Passing examinations meant hard work, and who wanted to study every evening?
But Sam Sylvester was worried about the difference between the two schools. He wanted Hawkwood to be as good as Greycoats, and he was always telling his class to work harder, to try and make a better life for themselves.
'That's the trouble with you lot,' he said to his class one day. 'You don't care about anything.'
'What do you want us to care about, sir?' asked Hoomey. He was a thin, serious child, who was too small for his age. His real name was Rossiter, but when someone spoke to him, he always said, 'Who? Me?', so everyone called him 'Hoomey'.
'I want you to have ambition,' said Sam. 'To do things. To want things.'
'What kind of things, sir?' said Nutty. Her real name was Deirdre McTavish, but everybody called her 'Nutty'. She was thirteen, had a broken nose, thick glasses, black hair and a big smile. But you had to be careful with her. She was a good fighter too.
'Anything,' said Sam. 'Anything at all. Now come on, tell me what you want in life.'
Nutty put up her hand. 'I want to be a rider in the Olympic Games before I'm twenty-one,' she said.
Nutty loved horses and riding and had her own horse, called Midnight - a present from her Uncle Bean. Midnight had been on his way to the knackers, where horses were turned into dog food. But her uncle, who worked there, had bought Midnight and given him to Nutty. She had cared for the horse, taught him to jump, and now she and Midnight often won competitions.
Hoomey put up his hand too.
'Yes, Rossiter?'
'I want to go and watch Northend United play football on Saturday, sir.'