When Daniel, the school bully, is given the gift of a stone, he doesn't realise that every time he does something wrong, the stone will grow. When the stone is big enough, it will come for him.
If he can learn his lesson in time and change before the stone grows too big, then he can still be saved. Otherwise, this bully will find out what happens when you do exactly what you want.
The Boy Who Broke the School is the story of Daniel, the school bully who thinks he is tough enough for anything. It takes a little bit of real magic to show him how wrong he can be.
Daniel is a funny, resourceful, cheeky and genuinely brave character who needs other people a lot more than he realises. He finds himself in unexpected danger and must change in time to save himself.
Along the way, he needs the help of his former victims and new friends, as well as locking horns with his teacher, headmistress and even the school itself.
The Boy Who Broke the School is a funny and exciting adventure for children aged 9-12.
This book is currently available as an ebook and will shortly be in paperback too. I'll update the blog then. I've included the first chapter as it gives a good flavour of the book. I will probably include another chapter when the paperback becomes available.
The book is available in the
UK and the
US. As usual, enjoy the extract but please respect the copyright!
A gift for Daniel
Daniel was cycling on
the pavement, travelling fast enough for the race track. He bumped who he
wanted to bump, and used the pavement because he felt like it. He was pedalling
so fast the wind blew his dark hair back from his forehead. His brown eyes
caught the light, and they glittered in the winter sun. He grinned wolfishly
and let out a savage howl as his bike careered past a gaggle of old women,
making them scream.
He turned the corner
too fast on purpose, hoping to catch someone unawares. The street was empty. He
had a clear run past the bus stop, all the way down to the traffic lights. If
he timed it just right, he could speed across the road as the traffic lights
changed, and terrify anyone waiting to cross.
Daniel cycled past the
bus stop and the broken seat. As he reached the old flower bed, he saw something
move out of the corner of his eye. He just had time to think, ‘Is that a doll?’,
when the doll’s leg stuck out, touched the side of his bike and sent him
flying.
Daniel had only once
fallen off his bike when it was not his fault and that was the time he made
Craig Jackson’s face bleed. This time he jumped to his feet, rubbing his arm
where the pavement had torn his sweater, and turned to see who had dared to kick
his bike. There was no one there.
He spun round,
scowling, ready for action. There was nowhere to hide, somebody must have done
it. He did another circle, then a voice said,
“You’ll be spinning
like a top if you do that anymore.”
Daniel did spin, in the direction of the voice,
and there on the wall next to the sad flower bed was the thing he had thought
was a doll.
It was a very small,
ugly man, about as high as Daniel’s hand and dressed in paper bags. He peered closer.
The bags had been made into clothes. Daniel rubbed his eyes.
“I must’ve been
knocked on the head,” he said to himself.
“I think you must’ve
been dropped on it, when you were a bairn,” the little man said, and cackled.
“Stop that!” Daniel
shouted. He didn’t care how weird this was, no one laughed at him.
“Stop that! Stop that!”
mimicked the little man and cackled again.
As usual, Daniel’s
temper did the thinking for him and he punched out. The little man shot off the
wall backwards and landed in the dried up flowers. As soon as he did it, Daniel
realised two things: the little man was real and Daniel was afraid of him.
Fear was a new
experience for Daniel and he didn't know what to do about it. He would not run
away, that was for cowards, so he stood there, his feet shuffling, rubbing his
sore arm.
“There now,” the
little man said. “I hurt you and you hurt me. I guess we’re even, eh?” He
cocked his head on one side and a petal drifted down.
Daniel looked away,
still unsure of himself, and his eye fell on his bike. There was a scrape up to
the seat, showing the pale blue underneath from before he painted it yellow.
His face darkened.
“No, we’re not!” he
cried, pointing accusingly. “You’ve scratched my bike! You’ll have to pay for
that!”
“Do I look like I
carry money?” the little man asked calmly, spreading his hands.
“I don’t care what you
look like, you’ve got to pay!”
Daniel was feeling
more sure of himself now. He was loads bigger than this little weasel, what did
he have to worry about? Anyway, he was in the right.
“Do you know what I like?”
the little man said, as if to himself. “A nice bit of birdseed.” He looked at Daniel
and added, “Aren’t we even then, sonny?”
“No. Look at my bike!”
“Hmm.” The little man
looked at the scratch, one hand on his chin. “I’ll give you what you’re worth,”
he said, finally.
Daniel, never the best
of listeners, thought he said ‘what it’s worth’ and nodded.
“You’d better,” he
said, sticking his chin out.
“It’s a deal then?”
the little man asked, rustling in a pocket on the back of his paper trousers.
“It’s a deal if you
pay up,” Daniel said, holding out his hand.
The little man put out
his hand, folded up as if he held something. He placed it over the one Daniel
pushed in front of him and before he let go of what he was holding, he said,
“This you take, I give
it ye, ‘til you’re acting pleasantly.”
Daniel screwed up his
mouth to ask what that meant as the little man dropped something very
small into his palm. Daniel held up his hand and peered into it.
It looked like a piece
of black grit, hardly big enough to see. He pushed it with one finger, then
looked up.
“What’s this meant to
be?” he asked, pulling a face.
“That’s what you’re
worth,” the little man said, backing away. “Don’t lose it, not everyone gets a
gift from an imp.”
“Why shouldn’t I lose
it? It’s worthless.”
“Ah, that it’s not,”
The imp waggled a finger at him, backing further into the flower bed. “You put
it somewhere safe or it’ll grow in value. Look after it well, lest it looks for
you.”
With that, he turned
and ran. Daniel clasped his hand over the grit and ran after him. The imp was quicker
than he should have been, even too quick for someone like Daniel who was used
to chasing people. He reached the trees which ran along the edge of the car park,
and then he was gone.
Daniel stood in the
car park and stared about him. There was nothing to show for the encounter,
only a piece of grit in his hand. He still held onto it, and, as if he didn’t
know what he was doing, Daniel put the grit in his pocket and walked back to
his bike.
Daniel picked up the
bike and shook it a bit, as though he thought the scratch might fall off. It
didn’t, and after glaring at it, and the car park, he got back on and rode
home.
On the way, he made an
old man hop off the pavement and drop his shopping. This cheered him up and he
came to his street with a smile on his face.
Mrs Sewell from next
door was weeding in her front garden and she looked up as Daniel’s shadow
passed her gate. She shook her head without speaking, and went back to her gardening.
Daniel narrowed his eyes and said,
“Smell you later, Mrs
Sewell!”
She stood up, her hand
going to her back and pursed her lips at him.
“Do you have to be so
rude all the time, Daniel?”
“Do you have to be so
old all the time?” Daniel said, in a mock pleasant voice.
“Oh!” Mrs Sewell was
shocked. “You’re a horrible child!” she exclaimed.
“And you’re a stinky
old woman!” Daniel yelled as a final taunt before trotting off to his own gate.
He could not see Mrs
Sewell past the high hedge between them but he could imagine her shaking her
head and wondering whether to come see his father. Daniel felt safe enough. The
last time she complained, she got another earful off his dad. Dad was too busy
with his own life to bother about some old whinge.
Daniel wheeled his
bike round the back and stuck it in the shed until he wanted to fix it. He
still had some yellow paint from when he did it the first time, it was no big
deal.
He let himself in the
back door and looked around the kitchen. Two cupboards were half off where his
dad had started to refit the kitchen. Next to Daniel’s bike in the shed were
the flat pack boxes full of the new cupboards. They were older than Daniel’s
bike and the cupboards had been resting against the wall and floor for the best
part of a year.
Daniel reached in to
one and took a packet of crisps off a leaning shelf. He walked up the stairs,
munching on his crisps and kicked the door to get into his bedroom. He fell
back onto the bed and lay there, crunching and staring at the ceiling. When he
had finished he flung the empty packet in the direction of his bedside cabinet,
where it ricocheted off the rubbish already balancing there and fell to the
floor.
Daniel spent a few
minutes picking out his teeth, not minding the mixture of crisp and grubby in
his fingernails. He licked his lips, and sniffed as his nose started to drip.
He gave in after a few sniffs and stuck both hands in his pockets to look for a
hanky.
He thought he found
one but it was just the fluff that had built up in his pocket. While he was scrabbling
about he came across a little stone. He frowned and took it out, only realising
what it was when he held it up to his face.
The light glinted off
the shiny black surface of the grit the imp had given him. He quite liked the way
it shone, like a tiny, sharp, black eye, gleaming at him from his hand. He
smiled, then frowned. Had it been this size before? There seemed to be more of
it now. That could not be right.
Daniel sat up on his
bed and looked closely at the stone. He held it this way and that, between
forefinger and thumb. It was still just grit, there was no doubt about that. It
was not big enough to be called a stone really.
And yet...
Daniel shook his head.
He was not used to letting himself think about things for too long. He looked
about the bedroom for something to do, and his hand put the grit back in his
pocket without him knowing it.
That night, as Daniel
lay in bed, there was a minuscule scraping sound in his bedroom. It was too small
to wake him up, only a cat could have heard it, but there must have been something
disturbing about it as Daniel began to frown in his sleep and mumble to himself.
His dreams had turned bad but he could not wake up.
In the corner, where
his trousers had been flung for the night, one pocket came alive for a moment
as something moved about in it. The tiniest shape threaded its way out of the
fabric and gleamed in the moonlight. It stopped for a moment and there was
silence. Daniel relaxed in his sleep. Then it moved again, rolling and slipping
across the floor, too quiet to hear, too nasty to ignore, until it reached the
open wardrobe. Once there, it was lost in the darkness of Daniel’s school
clothes.
Daniel turned over in
his bed and one arm fell over the side. Even in his sleep, instinct spoke to
him and he pulled his arm back under the covers. A part of Daniel’s mind that
he never listened to did not feel safe in his room tonight.
Amanda J Harrington
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