Evil Star

about leaving the north of England. He hated it there, and although the summer holidays weren't far away, he wasn't sure he could wait that long.
    From the outside, it was attractive enough. There was a quadrangle, an old courtyard with arches and outside stair-cases — and next to it a chapel complete with stained glass and gargoyles. Some parts of the school were three hundred years old and looked it, but in recent times the governors had managed to attract more money and had invested it in new buildings. There was a theater, a science Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star department, and a barn-size library on two floors, as well as tennis courts, a swimming pool, and playing fields. Everything was situ-ated, as Forrest Hill's name suggested, in what was a basin in the countryside with the roads sloping steeply down from all directions.
    The first time Matt had seen it, he had thought he was being driven into a university campus. It was only when he saw the boys, aged thirteen to eighteen, walking between classes in their fancy bluejackets and gray trousers that he realized that it was just a secondary school.
    It was certainly a world apart from St. Edmund's, the comprehensive school he had gone to in Ipswich. Matt didn't know where to begin when he compared the two. Everything was so neat and tidy here.
    There was no graffiti, no smell of chips, no flaking paint and goalposts with the net hanging in rags. There must have been a thousand books in the library, and all the computers in the technol-ogy center were state-of-the-art. Even the uniform made a huge difference. Putting it on for the first time, Matt felt as if something had been taken away from him. The jacket weighed down on his shoulders and cut underneath his arms. The tie with its green and gray stripes was ridiculous. He didn't want to be a businessman, so why was he dressing up as one? When he looked in the mirror, it was as if he were seeing someone else.
    It wasn't Richard who had come up with the idea of sending him here. The Nexus — the mysterious organiza-tion that had taken over his life — had suggested it. Matt had done almost no work for two years. He was behind in every subject. Sending him to a new school in the middle of the summer term would cause problems wherever he went. But a private school wouldn't ask too many questions and might be able to look after his special needs. The Nexus was paying.

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star It seemed like a good idea. But it had gone wrong almost from the start.
    Most of the teachers at Forrest Hill were all right, but it was the ones who weren't who really made themselves felt. It seemed to take Matt only days to make permanent enemies with Mr. King, who taught English, and Mr. O'Shaughnessy, who doubled as French teacher and assistant headmaster. Both these men were in their thirties but behaved like they were much older. On the first day, Mr. King had given Matt a dressing-down for chewing gum in the quadrangle. On the second, it had been Mr. O'Shaughnessy who had given him a high-pitched, ten-minute lecture for an untucked shirt. After that, both of them seemed to have taken every opportunity they could to pick on him.
    Still, the teachers were nothing compared with the other boys at the school. Matt was a survivor. There had been some real bullies at St.
    Edmund's, including one or two who seemed to take a real pleasure in picking on anyone who was small, hardworking, or just different from them. He had known it would take time to make friends in a new school, especially now that he was moving into the private sector. But even so, he had been surprised by how few of them had been prepared to give him a chance.
    Of course, they all knew each other. The other fourteen-year-olds at Forrest Hill were at the end of their second year and they'd already made their friendships. A pattern of life had been established. As a newcomer, Matt knew that he was intruding. Worse than that, he had come from a completely different world. Very few of the boys were snobs, but they were still suspicious about him. One boy in particular seemed determined to give him a hard time.
    His name was Gavin Taylor. He was in most of the same classes as Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Matt. And he controlled their entire grade.
    Taylor wasn't physically big. He was slim with a turned-up nose and blond, slightly greasy hair that hung down to his collar. He made a point of