Matthew drained his last drop of lemonade with a deliberate, rude, slurping sound and sat back moodily.

This was it. He was off. Off to the new start that would do him good, or so everyone else kept on saying. He'd been called an unteachable misfit at his old school, and parked in a corner, week after week, with something trivial to do, while the rest of the class got on with the "real work". Yet if that teacher had sat him near the blackboard, as he kept on asking, then the so-called problem would have solved itself. Now, thanks to her stupidity, he was having to leave home and push off to some weird place on the other side of the country.

'Get a move on for once in your life or we'll miss our train at Paddington,' Matthew's father scolded impatiently. He got up from his seat in the shabby cafe and led the way out to a street bustling with cars, buses and trams.

Matthew dawdled sulkily. Too bad if they did miss it. He didn't want to be on the thing anyway.

'Try losing that long face, son. A fresh start at a different school might do you good - make you wake up your ideas at last.'

These hurtful words made Matthew seethe with anger. He snatched at the handle of his new, brown suitcase and stomped resentfully along the crowded pavement. Then, suddenly, his anger was transformed into a fierce determination. He stopped dead, paused to think clearly, and then made three solemn resolutions. He'd try his absolute hardest to make the most of this new school, to find some friends, and to stick up for himself. He'd show his father. He'd show the lot of them.

They reached the cavernous, Great Western Railway terminus and stood for some moments, gazing around at the bustle and confusion. Matthew stared up at the soaring, curved, iron and glass roof, where the smutty panes reduced the afternoon sunshine to a muted ochre light.

'Which platform for Westonbury?' his father called to a porter wheeling a wooden trolley stacked high with luggage.

'Platform one, sir,' the porter yelled above the clamour.

Matthew stared in awe at the huge, Brunswick-green locomotive standing uncoupled at platform one. It was hissing gently as if relaxing after a long, tiring journey. At the far end of the train, another locomotive chuffed and belched its way backwards towards the chocolate and cream Great Western Railway coaches, ready to couple up, and pull them back to the west.

'Stop gawping, son! Try to be some use for once in your life. We have to find a Mr Langley. He's supposed to be meeting us.'

Further along the platform, a tall, thin man in a brown tweed jacket and matching curly hair, suddenly called out, 'Any more for the Western School?'

'That'll be him. Come on, son, and don't look so gormless.'

They made their way to where the man stood amid a jostling group of boys and girls of mixed ages. His father pushed through, while Matthew hung back self-consciously.

'Hullo there.' The tall man looked at Matthew's thick spectacles and then to the bold initials on his suitcase. 'Let me guess. You must be Matthew Kent. I'm Mr Langley, and you're in my class this year. Don't look so worried,' the teacher added quickly when he saw the uneasy expression on his new pupil's face. 'I'm sure you'll settle in well with us.' He turned to the others for support. 'Won't he, children?'

'Not if he's scared of ghosts, sir,' a girl's voice piped up from somewhere within the group. 'The Boys' House is haunted.'

'Rubbish!' a boy jeered back. 'There ain't no such things as ghosts.'

'Yes there is. Peter Harman swears Scouts' honour he saw one, so there! A fat, grey misty blob it was, with bulging, bloodshot eyes. It came moaning along a corridor, unscrewed its head and kicked it down the stairs.'

'Ha ha! Pull the other one. I bet what Peter saw were splodges of dinner on his glasses. He never cleans 'em.'

'You're both spouting rubbish,' a third voice chipped in. 'The caretaker said it was definitely burglars, 'cos ....'

'That will do, thank you.' Mr Langley was clearly embarrassed. He started to apologise to Matthew's father, until he was drowned out by a gush of steam from the locomotive standing at a nearby platform. 'It's time to say goodbye to your parents and board the train,' the teacher said when the din had died down. He turned to Matthew's father. 'I understand you're coming with us, Mr Kent.'

'Yes, his mother said I ought to because it's Matthew's first time away from home.'

Matthew was reluctant to move. Instead, he stared down glumly at the new brown suitcase and then at his initials painted on the lid in bold, crisp, silver capitals.

'There,' his father had said two days before, as he proudly added the last, square, full stop. 'M.R.K. No one else will have these initials. Not even you should be able to lose it.'

'Stop daydreaming, son, and get on the train with the others.'

Scowling fiercely, Matthew picked up his suitcase and heaved it into a carriage. He shuffled past crowded compartments while doors slid open and shut, and bodies pushed through and out again as the school party squeezed in among the other passengers.

'In here, son. Two seats not taken. Get a move on, can't you? Before someone else grabs them.'

Matthew staggered into the compartment and his father took the suitcase and lifted it onto the luggage rack overhead.

'These boys are with our group,' his father said loudly. 'They don't look too dangerous, do they? So you've no excuse this time for not getting on with people.'

Matthew cringed with embarrassment. He sat in a corner seat and twisted away from the curious stares of the four boys opposite. His father swung another bag onto the luggage rack and plonked himself onto a seat.

'Don't forget this bag when you get off. Your grandmother gave it to you specially, and it would be just like you to leave it behind. You'd lose your own head if it wasn't screwed on.'

The other boys stopped staring and started giggling. 'D'you think he's that headless ghost Peter saw?' one sniggered.

'Dunno,' another said with a deliberate, probing gaze. 'We'll know for sure if it starts to make horrible moaning noises.'

Matthew shrank even further into his corner while everyone else looked towards the windows when they heard the guard's whistle. The carriage gave the gentlest of jolts and the station started to glide smoothly backwards.

'This is Matthew,' his father announced to the rest of the carriage. 'He's got to come to your school because he was worse than useless at the last one. His teacher refused to waste any more time with someone who kept drawing insane doodles instead of getting on with the lessons.'

Three of the other boys looked at each other and smirked, but the fourth, a stocky boy with black hair and bottle-bottom glasses, stood up.

'Hello, I'm Arthur,' he said cheerfully. 'Want to come into the corridor?'

At first, Matthew turned away as if not wishing to hear. Then he told himself off. Hadn't one of those resolutions outside the station been about making friends? 'Yes, I would, thanks.' He looked to his father for permission. It came grudgingly.

'If you really must, but you'll only have yourself to blame if you lose your seat.'

Out in the corridor, Arthur leaned against the swaying wall and grinned. 'You mean they chucked you out of your school just for drawing doodles? I've never been to an ordinary school. Good job, too, by the sound of it. Go on, tell me more.'

'I think what finally did it was the figure three I drew in my maths book,' said Matthew, smiling at last.

'What was so wrong with that?'

'It was at least four inches tall, covered with long, scruffy hair and dangling upside down from a tree. I'd been reading a story called The Log of the Ark and that had a sloth in it. That's what gave me the idea. Then I improved it by adding a pair of eyes on stalks, so that it could peer out through all its hair. When my teacher saw it, she went screaming bananas and told everyone that I'd finally gone raving mad.'

Arthur shook with laughter. 'Your school sounds a right dump. Even so, I wouldn't try anything like that in Mr Langley's class, if I were you.'

Matthew's mood became uneasy again. 'What's your school like? Are there ... are there any bullies?'

'Bullies? No, why? Did you used to get bashed up?'

'Sometimes,' Matthew admitted reluctantly, although he knew often would have been much nearer the truth. 'And they called me names.'

'Like what?'

'Er ... rotten things. It doesn't matter now.' Matthew couldn't bring himself to tell Arthur about the spiteful gang hounding him every playtime and chanting Squinty four eyes at the tops of their voices. And when they caught him .... He fell silent for a moment and stared out of the window.

'Tell me more about your school,' he asked, to change the subject.

'Oh, lumpy beds, lumpy custard, you soon get used to lumping it,' Arthur said with a grin. 'Billy and me - Billy's my best friend - we're in Mr Langley's class this year.'

'So am I.'

'Then you'll be an eight o'clocker, too.'

'A what?'

But Arthur was distracted by something outside. 'What's that big dark thing going past?' he asked, and pressed his face against the window.

'A gasometer,' Matthew answered in a surprised voice. Surely Arthur could see something as big as that?

'What else is there?'

'Er ... the back of a row of houses,' Matthew said uncomfortably. 'Can't you see them?'

'Only bits and pieces this far away,' Arthur grumbled.

Matthew felt embarrassed and didn't know what to say, until the German Air Force came to his aid. 'There's a whacking great gap in a row of houses we're passing,' he reported. 'At least four have gone. Then, remembering Arthur's limited eyesight, he added, 'One side of the gap's still got green wallpaper, and there's a fireplace left stuck on the wall in mid air.'

'Bombed, like my grandma's house. She was bombed out by a doodlebug.'

'Gosh! Your poor gran. Was she all right?'

'Oh yes, but only 'cos she was down at the police station at the time, being questioned about flogging butter on the black market. Who says crime doesn't pay!'

Matthew laughed but chose not to follow up this unexpected topic. He was still anxious to know more about where they were going. 'What's Westonbury like?' he asked.

'Okay, except that lots of it got flattened, too.'

The train bucked and grumbled across a tangled mesh of points and tracks, and both boys braced themselves against the swaying carriage wall. Then they picked up speed and the west London suburbs began to give way to scattered green fields.

They chatted on for several minutes until Matthew's father ordered him back into the compartment for a late lunch. Arthur stayed in the corridor and was soon playing a rowdy chasing game with others in their party.

Matthew sat sullenly next to his father and started to eat the Spam sandwiches his mother had packed. He caught frustrating glimpses of Arthur and the others having a riotous time and resented being pulled away just when he was getting on so well. The chasing game got wilder and more raucous, until Mr Langley came out and ordered the wrongdoers to sit with him in another compartment.

'Reading,' Matthew's father announced when the train slowed. 'Then it's Newbury and Taunton.'

By the time they got to Taunton, Matthew was bored, fed up and miserable. He'd been longing for a chance to get back to the corridor but his father kept insisting that he stayed in his seat to 'Let his lunch go down.' Eventually he relented. 'We must be in Devon by now. Why not go into the corridor? You'll get a better view out there.'

At last, Matthew was able to jump up and leave the compartment. He searched all through the nearby carriages but to his great disappointment, he couldn't find Arthur. Instead, he spent several minutes looking out of the windows at the lush, green, tumbling fields. That soon got boring, so he stared skywards at the swirling wreaths of steam and smoke trailing back from the engine, and followed the eddies as they shredded and evaporated against the sky.

A compartment door slid open further along the carriage and a group of children came out. Matthew was overjoyed to find that Arthur was with them.

'Arthur! It's me,' he called out eagerly. 'I'm down here.'

The others wandered off, while Arthur tottered along the pitching floor to join Matthew.

'You're right, it is you. Well spotted!' Arthur said with mock gravity. 'Where have you been? I thought you'd fallen off the train. I was going to pull the thing that stops it, but they fine you forty shillings, and I haven't got that much money. I could've asked Mr Langley to lend me enough, but I knew he'd be a spoilsport and say no.'

Matthew laughed. He was feeling brighter again. Arthur's absurd humour was just what he needed.

Arthur pressed his nose against a window. 'We'll be there soon. Then you'll meet Billy. He's not one of us London lot, he's from Bristol. Last term we ....'

'We're slowing down,' Matthew interrupted.

'So we are. It's either Westonbury or a ten ton hippopotamus dancing on the line.' Arthur grinned. 'Better get my stuff. See you later.'

'Wake up, Matthew!' his father barked from the compartment doorway. 'What's the matter with you? Can't you see we're stopping?'

The train juddered to a halt with a long, harsh squeal. People stood, fussed, got in each other's way, hauled suitcases and bags down from the luggage racks, and staggered into the corridor.

Matthew's father opened the carriage door and stepped down to the platform. Matthew followed and looked around with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

'Here, son, take your suitcase. You don't expect me to lug everything, do you?'

Matthew took the suitcase unwillingly and waited for the rest of the party to assemble on the platform.

'Follow me, everyone,' Mr Langley called out heartily. 'Are the Kents still with us? Ah, good. It's only a short walk from here.'

They followed Matthew's new teacher out of the station and uphill past a terrace of tall, shabby, Victorian villas. Matthew laboured to keep up with the others while they went steeply downhill again into an area of Georgian and Regency houses, in what had once been a fairly posh district. Now it seemed in need of a lick of paint and a slice of luck.

The heavy suitcase changed hands once more. 'The school must be around here somewhere,' Matthew muttered aloud. 'We've come at least fifty short walks already.' He paused to check ahead but the only place that seemed big enough was a gaunt, institutional-looking building on the right. It had two storeys at one end and four at the other, due partly to the steepness of the hill. At least it won't be that, he decided. It's much too grim and there's no sign of a playground.

Mr Langley had been striding ahead and now he halted to let the stragglers catch up. 'Wait here, everyone, until I tell you to cross the road. Where are the Kents? Ah, here they come. This is it, young man. Your home from home for the next term.'

Matthew dropped his suitcase and stared in dismay at the forbidding, Victorian building. Then he looked up and saw a long line of faded white letters painted high up on the red brickwork.

THE WESTERN SCHOOL FOR THE PARTIALLY SIGHTED

'Oh no!' Matthew groaned aloud. He stayed on the pavement while the rest of the party crossed the road and made for the front door.

His father seemed equally dismayed. 'It's nothing like the photo they sent us. Perhaps it'll be better round the back.'

Matthew was sure it wasn't. He picked up the suitcase and trudged miserably across the road.

© Ron Karley