My name's Zowey Corby and I'm a pupil at Cricklepit Combined School. My elder brother - well, half-brother, really - went there, too. Gowie's his name; you may remember him from Gowie Corby Plays Chicken. Anyway, he turned out OK so perhaps there's hope for me. But I don't know about Tiro. He's frightening, Tiro is; we're just about all of us scared of him and he doesn't have any real friends except perhaps for Hopper who's more like his slave than a friend. He worships Tiro; nobody else gets a look-in - not that anyone would want Hopper as a friend, mind you. Lucy cetainly didn't and yet she was the first person, apart from Tiro, Hopper felt anything for. And that's where my story begins; the day 'Posh Git' Lucy walked into our classroom, and Hopper fell hopelessly in love with her. But that wasn't her only problem. . .