1
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.'
'And that's your life's ambition?' said Sam crossly. 'Well, why don't you? It isn't very difficult.'
'It's too far. And my bicycle's broken.'
'You can catch a bus, can't you?'
'It's a long walk from my house to the bus-stop, sir.'
Sam covered his face with his hands, and the class laughed. 'All right, Rossiter,' Sam said. 'I'll take you in my car. You and three friends.'
'Oh, thank you, sir!' said Hoomey.
And that was how it all started, because on the way home from the football match on Saturday, Sam stopped the car at a pub. 'I'm going in here for a drink,' he said. 'I'll bring
you out some cokes if you want.'
'Yes please, sir.'
The three friends with Hoomey were Nutty, Nutty's cousin David Bean and a Sikh boy called Jazz. Hoomey hadn't invited Nutty. She just said, 'I'm your friend. I'm coming,'
Nobody argued with Nutty.
The Greycoats School bus was also in the pub carpark. Inside it there were four boys, drinking cokes. 'Well, that's nice,' said Sam. 'Now you can all have an intelligent
conversation together.'
'We don't want to talk to them, sir,' Bean said.
Nutty was looking hard at the Greycoats bus. 'That boy with the fair hair and the big nose, ' she said. 'He's Sebastian Smith. He's Gloria's boyfriend.' Gloria was Nutty's older
sister, a gentle, beautiful girl, who always had lots of boyfriends.
Nutty pushed her face against the car window, then opened it. 'Hi, Seb!' she cried. 'It's me!'
Sebastian looked at her coldly, then opened the bus window and said, 'Get lost!'
'Have you been to the match too?' asked Nutty.
'No. We've been competing in a tetrathlon. That's a Greek word, so you won't understand it.'
'What is it? A special game for little boys?'
'It's a very difficult competition in running, swimming, shooting, and cross-country riding.'
'Where did you come? Last?'
'First out of twenty teams. ' Sebastian closed the window.
'I could do all that,' Nutty said. 'Hey, Seb!'
He opened the window again.
'Do they have girls in the competition?'
'No. They're not strong enough.' He smiled unkindly, and shut the window again.
'I hate that Sebastian,' Nutty said to the others.
They waited, not very patiently, for Sam, and after a while Bean went to find him. He came back shaking his head. 'He's talking to that Greycoats teacher. Arguing about something
A few minutes later the two teachers came out, walked over to Sam's car and looked hard at Nutty and her friends.
'What, these four?' cried the Greycoats teacher. 'You'll never make a team out of them. One of them's a girl too. You can't use her. You'll need another boy.'
'No problem,' said Sam. 'And we'll beat you. The two men shook hands, and Sam got into his car.
'What's all that about, sir?' asked Hoomey.
'I'll tell you on Monday,' said Sam.
On Monday morning Sam's class listened with open mouths as Sam told them his news.
'Now listen carefully, because this is very important. I want to show everybody that Hawkwood School is just as good as Greycoats School. Some people think that my plan is impossible, but I know we can do it. We're going to enter a tetrathlon team against the Greycoats School team, and I've promised that we'll beat them. The competition is next summer, so we've got almost a year to get ready. It just needs hard work. And the four people in the team—'
'I know, sir,' Nutty said excitedly. 'It's because you met the Greycoats teacher on Saturday, so it's the four of us who were in your car, isn't it? Except me, because I'm a girl.
But can't I be captain, sir? Olympic teams have captains:
'Well, all right, Deirdre,' said Sam, pleased. 'We'll need your help with the riding. So the team will be Rossiter, Beam and Jazz —and the fourth boy will be Gary Nicholson. as a good swimmer already.'
Hoomey suddenly sat up when he heard his name. His eyes were round with horror. 'Who, sir? Me, sir?' he said, in a frightened voice. 'But I can't swim, or ride, or shoot! I can't do any of those things!'
'You can learn,' said Sam. 'You'll have to.'
Hoomey, Jazz, Bean, and Gary looked at each other unhappily. 'Why us?' said Bean. 'It's not fair! We'll never beat Greycoats. Never in a million years!'
But everybody in the school was excited by the tetrathlon plan. Yes, Hawkwood would show that rich Greycoats crowd! Hawkwood for gold!
The other teachers thought Sam was crazy, but they agreed to help. The headteacher worried about money for all the sports lessons, but Sam said that the parents liked the idea very much. They would help to pay for everything and Mr Bean would find them some horses.
In fact, everybody was happy — except Hoomey, Jazz,Bean, and Gary.