Prologue
Less than twenty-four hours after Gary is named Head Boy, the school is plunged into chaos. Petey is almost surprised that it only takes that long, given the amount of poison that Gary had spread amongst Bullworth's cliques in an attempt to weaken Jimmy's rising authority. After all, there was a limited number of times that one could spread rumors that involved people's mothers and barnyard animals before someone cracked and did something.
Petey spends most of the time barricaded in his room in the Boys' Dorm, which seems like the safest option as the school had almost literally been turned upside down. At one point he heard a crash in the dorm that made him sit on the floor against his bed, listening as the whirl of sirens came closer and closer to the school. Several students had already been expelled because of Gary and he was certain that if the chaos persisted, a few more would probably be expelled or end up in prison.
He heard a noise that sounded like someone falling against his door and he winced. He covered his ears and counted to thirty, and when he stopped counting he realized that the noise had stopped.
He got up from his hiding place and cautiously approached the door. He put his ear against the wood and couldn't hear anything. He removed the chair and then opened the door slightly, just enough so that he would be able to see what was happening outside.
There was no one in the hallway, and if there had been a few moments earlier, they were gone. Furniture in the common room had been upended and it looked as though someone had dislodged one of the fire hydrants and sprayed it all across the dorm. But there was no one, so Petey shuffled out of his room and locked the door behind him.
Once he was outside, he noticed that it had started to rain, almost as though the world recognized the fact that it needed to be raining in order for the scene to appear appropriately dramatic. The sky looked an unnatural shade of purple, and for a moment, Petey wonders if that's the reason why so many people at the front of the school are looking up.
He walks quickly over to the crowd, wondering if someone is going to reach out and attack him, but no one does. Instead, he hears a few people murmur things like, "The Head Boy's up there!" and "Jimmy's back!" None of them seem sure why the fight is important, but just that it is.
Petey can't help but feel hopeful that Jimmy found his way back into the school. He'd felt so guilty when he was expelled, as though he hadn't done enough to keep him two steps ahead of Gary. "C'mon Jimmy!" he can't stop cheering with everyone else as they try to watch the fight - though it's a miracle that anyone can see anything, given the fact that the figures of Gary and Jimmy appear to be nothing more than tiny specs against the backdrop of the school.
Maybe it's because they're watching from so far away, but once the red-haired girl next to him says: "I think Jimmy's beaten Gary." Petey's almost certain that he's the only one that realizes that's a good thing, everyone else trying to make sense of the confrontation that is occurring above them.
There's a sense of confusion amongst the crowd, but also a sense of hopefulness, that something happened that can end whatever fighting had begun.
It's only a couple of minutes later that the doors to the school open and it isn't Jimmy that's standing there, but Gary, grinning as though he's just been crowned Emperor of Bullworth Academy.
"That, Bullworth," he says, shoving a battered and bloody Jimmy onto the steps before the school, as though he's some sort of sacrificial offering for the gods of chaos. "Was your king."
And then the crowd fell silent.