Evil Star

ensuring that his tie was never straight, slouching around with his hands in his pock-ets and an attitude that warned everyone
    — staff or student — to keep his distance. There was an arrogance to him that Matt could feel a hundred yards away. It was said that he was one of the richest boys in the school. His father had a company selling secondhand cars on the Internet throughout Britain. And Taylor had four or five friends who were big. They followed him round the school like bit-part villains in a Quentin Tarantino film.
    It was Taylor who had decided that Matt was bad news. It wasn't what he knew about the new arrival that offended him. It was what he didn't. Matt had come out of nowhere at the end of the school year. He hadn't been to a prep school and he wouldn't explain why he had left his com-prehensive, what had happened to his parents, or what he had been doing for the past two months. Taylor had taunted and teased Matt for the first few weeks, trying to make him drop his guard. The fact that Matt wasn't scared of him and refused to tell him anything only angered him all the more.
    But then something happened that made the whole situation infinitely worse. Somehow, Taylor overheard the school secretary talking on the phone in her office and learned that Matt had been in trouble with the police. He'd spent time in a Secure Children's Home or something similar. And he had no money. Some sort of charity, an organization in London, had picked up the tab to send him here.
    Within minutes, the story had spread all around the school, and from that moment, Matt had been doomed. He was the new boy. The charity case. A loser. He wasn't part of the school and never would Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star be.
    Maybe there were boys there who would have been more generous ... but they were too scared of Gavin Taylor. So Matt found himself virtually friendless. He hadn't told Richard any of this —
    Matt had never been the sort of per-son to complain out loud. When his parents had died, when he had been sent to live with Gwenda Davis, even when he had been working as a virtual slave at Hive Hall, he had tried to build a wall around himself. But each day was becoming harder to endure. He was certain that sooner or later something would snap.
    As usual, the bus dropped him off at half past eight. The day always began with an assembly in the chapel, a hymn sung tunelessly by six hundred and fifty schoolboys who were only half awake, and a brief address from the head or one of the teachers. Matt kept his head down. He thought about what he had said to Richard that morning.
    He really was determined to go. He'd had enough.
    The first two lessons weren't too bad. The math and history teachers were young and sympathetic and didn't allow the other boys in the class to pick on him. Matt spent the morning break in the library, trying to catch up with his homework. After that, he had forty-five minutes with the special-needs teacher who was trying to help him with his spelling and grammar. The last lesson before lunch was English, and Mr. King was in a bad mood.
    "Freeman, will you please stand up!"
    Matt got warily to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Taylor nudge another boy and grin. He made sure his own face gave nothing away.
    Mr. King walked toward him. The English teacher was beginning to Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star lose his hair. He combed the ginger strands from one side of his head to the other, but the bald curve of his skull still showed through. He was holding a dog-eared copy of Oliver Twist. This was the book they had been reading in class. He also had a pile of exercise books.
    "Did you read the chapters that I set you in Oliver Twist?" he asked.
    "I tried to," Matt said. He liked the characters in the story, but he found some of the language old-fashioned and difficult to follow.
    Why did Charles Dickens have to use so much description?
    “You tried to?" Mr. King sneered at him. "I think what you mean is, you didn't."
    "I did —" Matt began.
    "Don't interrupt me, Freeman. Your essay was the worst in the class.
    You scored a pathetic two out of twenty. You can't even spell Fagin
    correctly! F-A-Y-G-I-N! There is no Tin Fagin, Freeman. If you'd read the chapters, you'd know that."
    Taylor guffawed. Despite himself, Matt felt his cheeks glowing red.
    “You will read the chapters again and you will do the test again, and in the future, I'd prefer it if you didn't