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Chapters (93)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Chapter 1
  5. Part One
  6. Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Chapter 3
  9. Chapter 4
  10. Chapter 5
  11. Chapter 6
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Chapter 10
  16. Part Two
  17. Chapter 1
  18. Chapter 2
  19. Chapter 3
  20. Chapter 4
  21. Chapter 5
  22. Chapter 6
  23. Chapter 7
  24. Chapter 8
  25. Chapter 9
  26. Chapter 10
  27. Chapter 11
  28. Chapter 12
  29. Part Three
  30. Chapter 1
  31. Chapter 2
  32. Chapter 3
  33. Chapter 4
  34. Chapter 5
  35. Chapter 6
  36. Chapter 7
  37. Part Four
  38. Chapter 1
  39. Chapter 2
  40. Chapter 3
  41. Chapter 4
  42. Chapter 5
  43. Chapter 6
  44. Chapter 7
  45. Chapter 8
  46. Chapter 9
  47. Part Five
  48. Chapter 1
  49. Chapter 2
  50. Chapter 3
  51. Chapter 4
  52. Chapter 5
  53. Chapter 6
  54. Chapter 7
  55. Chapter 8
  56. Chapter 9
  57. Chapter 10
  58. Chapter 11
  59. Part Six
  60. Chapter 1
  61. Chapter 2
  62. Chapter 3
  63. Chapter 4
  64. Chapter 5
  65. Chapter 6
  66. Chapter 7
  67. Part Seven
  68. Chapter 1
  69. Chapter 2
  70. Chapter 3
  71. Chapter 4
  72. Chapter 5
  73. Chapter 6
  74. Chapter 7
  75. Chapter 8
  76. Chapter 9
  77. Chapter 10
  78. Chapter 11
  79. Part Eight
  80. Chapter 1
  81. Chapter 2
  82. Chapter 3
  83. Chapter 4
  84. Chapter 5
  85. Chapter 6
  86. Chapter 7
  87. Chapter 8
  88. Chapter 9
  89. Epilogue
  90. Acknowledgments
  91. Reading Group Guide
  92. About the Author
  93. Copyright

At least, the Chaplain thinks so. But Caesar was killed to save Rome from his monstrous ambition. And now, for the first time, I think I can see why a loyal son of St. Oswald’s might contemplate that treachery, and I wondered if, in our Senate, there might perhaps be a Brutus to Johnny Harrington’s Caesar.

Chapter 12

12

Michaelmas Term, 1981

Dear Mousey,

It’s been a week since Poodle confessed to me about his Condition. Since then, he hasn’t been looking too good. People have started to notice. In Poodle’s case, it didn’t take long for those telltale signs to reveal themselves. Besides, he has a history. And history always repeats itself.

No, not like my history. Something from his junior school, involving a local boy from the Sunnybank development. Nothing much, just show-and-tell. But Poodle’s mother went crazy. Not so much because her boy was doing the dirty around the back of the bike sheds, but because of the other boy; a boy who wasn’t One of Us. That’s why his little secret could never stay a secret for long. And now this thing with the magazines and the hidey-hole by the clay pits, which everyone knows is a meeting place for perverts and drunks and scum of all kinds, as well as boys from Abbey Road, the technical school on the estate, which has bars on the windows and pebble-dashed mobile classrooms all around the central building, like calves around a concrete cow.

That’s why they sent Poodle to Middle School instead of starting St. Oswald’s. They thought that the healing presence of girls would cure whatever was wrong with him. And of course they prayed—well, everyone prayed—so that when the trouble died down at last (or Poodle learned to control himself), he could make a fresh start as a seventh-­term boy, all neat and clean and virginal.

That was the idea, at least. But now, with the start of Advent, it’s open season on demons. We’ve had some new faces in Church recently, with lots of visiting speakers. Mr. Speight is one of them. He’s very big on demons. He gave a talk on Dungeons & Dragons, that American role-playing game, and how it preys on the weak-minded and encourages boys to use magic and to conjure Satan in their hearts. Then there was the speaker who was cured of homosexual thoughts by fasting and electricity; a woman whose son was lured away from her by the gay community; and this Sunday, a preacher from one of our sister churches in America, who brought a ton of leaflets directing parents how to deal with sons who might be having gay thoughts, and who wore yellow cowboy boots and a T-shirt that said KICK OUT THE SIN, LET JESUS IN!