St Augustine's wrote a week after he sat his exams. His mother opened the envelope and they all crowded round. She read a few lines to herself then smiled. 'Well done, Tony. You got in.' She handed him the letter and went to call his father.

'Wow Tony. Such a rich private school' Jane said. 'What will you do there?' She looked slightly worried. She only expressed what he hadn't dared to voice. What indeed? Until now it had been fun dreaming of going there, but now that he was accepted –well he didn't really know anymore.

Marco laughed. 'Tony will be fine. Ask about the teachers instead! They'll get a 'real' person coming now.'

'Tony, I'm off now' his mother called. 'Dinner's in the fridge. Put it in the oven at 4.30. Just peel some potatoes. Joey's down for his nap. Be good.'

He took them outside to play basket ball, boys against girls. Tony lifted Bobby a few times to drop balls through. Presently Joey awoke and Tony fed him his bottle. The baby fussed. Tony walked with him in the lounge until he settled, and then re-heated the bottle. 'Come on Joey, eat. Mom's at work. Papa'll be back soon.' The baby gradually took the bottle.

The girls watched TV on the floor while Marco worked on a model ship on the dining room table. Tony's eyes searched for Bobby. Presently he got up, returned the bottle to the kitchen and found Bobby playing with the phone. 'Who're you calling, Bob?'

'Batman' he said, giving his brother an impish grin.

'Bobby, call him quick. Otherwise Mom won't be able to get through and she'll be worried.' She'd be cross with him too. The phone had to be kept free for whichever parent wished to confirm they were all okay. Bobby hung up.

'Batman's coming' he yelled and rushed to the window.

An hour later their father returned. He hugged Tony. 'Well done. I'm so proud of you. I knew you'd get in. Now tomorrow I'll take you to get your uniform, all of it!' The list of necessary items was indeed impressive.

'Do we even have the money for the uniform?' he asked.

'Yes we do. You'll have everything the same as the others there,' his father said firmly.

That night Tony lay awake staring at the clouds outside. He finally got up for some water and peeped into his parents' room. 'Papa.' Mr. Almeida laid down the book he was reading and beckoned him in.

'Come here. Hop in.' Tony climbed into his mother's side of the bed and rested his head against his father's shoulder. 'What's wrong?'

'I don't know if I want to go to St Augustine's,' he began slowly. 'I don't know anyone there. What if they all hate me, coz we don't live where they do.?'

'Hey, I won't pretend it'll be easy all the time. But you're smarter than the majority of them, and you play basket ball quite well, so they'll get used to you. Tony, I won a scholarship to come here, and I met your mom, and see how well that worked out.' He ruffled Tony's hair.

'They say it's a real strict place' Tony continued miserably. 'Like a jail'.

Mr. Almeida laughed. 'Honey, it's a private school. They've got their own behavior code. You will have to be obedient and punctual, but no, it's nothing like a prison. The uniform is $ 500. Just give it a go, it might be fun!'

'It won't be' replied Tony apprehensively. 'This St Augustine –he was a miserable guy who wrote only about the end of the world.'

'Stop it, Antonio. Don't even think such things. St Augustine was one of the founders of modern history and he lived at the break-up of the Roman Empire. He can be excused for thinking about the end of the world.'

Tony sighed. Entering the school would be the end of his world. Yet he saw how proud his parents were. It would take tremendous pressure off his father who spent hours on his education every weekend. There was no chance of wriggling out of this one.

After breakfast his father took Tony and Jane to get the uniform. Jane could be trusted to behave perfectly and also to provide Tony with moral support. She admired every aspect of the uniform, trying on his jersey and blazer. They went on a tour of the school. Jane walked ahead cheerfully while Tony lagged behind, wandering how he would ever find his way around.

At home he was forced to play with Marco during the last week of the holidays. His old friends looked at him oddly and chatted about the school they'd all start. He was no longer included. His mother must have noticed something for she took them to the beach every morning. They swam and he helped the younger ones build large sand castles, and collect buckets full of shells to take home.

'Why can't we just do this everyday?' Tony wished. 'Who needs school?' The days flew by.

They got ready for the beginning of the new school year with frantic preparations, the same as every previous year. Note books and pencils purchased weeks ago had managed to go missing. Rita's bag had been torn. Their mother left for work in the middle of it all. It was past 11.00 before they were all in bed.

Breakfast was rushed the next morning. All the dishes were abandoned on the table as they dressed. They piled into the van. 'Now Tony, you start first and your school is pretty strict about arriving on time, so I'll drop you first' said his mother. 'Ok?'

He nodded silently. It was a bit like starting school in LA three years ago, only then he had Jane and Marco with him. Now he stood and watched as the van drove away. He took a deep breath and walked through the yard into the gym where the incoming students were supposed to assemble. Class lists were read and teachers led away charges. A middle aged man with glasses called Tony's group.

They settled at desks in a quiet room. 'Now I know the majority of you know each other, but we've still had a long holiday, so why don't we start by telling what we did?'

Tony listened to his new classmates' holidays. Every one of them had been somewhere. Popular spots included London, Paris, Rome and the Greek islands. Someone had been to Acapulco. One even spent a couple of weeks skiing in New Zealand. Tony told them he had been to Mexico. The hour passed.

They went to their first class next –English. The teacher read a poem about a sailing disaster and instructed them to form groups of four and discuss it. Tony watched the others grab their friends and sit at tables. One group of three chatted in a corner. The teacher pointed him that way.

They fell silent at his approach. 'Hi' he said awkwardly as he joined them.

'Now I want your group's list on reasons why this man can be called a tragic hero.' The teacher drifted off. The silence at the table continued. All three boys stared at Tony. He began to wish he had been placed with a different group.

'So you're the scholarship boy?' one asked.

'Stop it Dennis. Ignore him,' another boy told Tony. 'I'm John.' His file was decorated with tennis players' pictures. Tony recognized him as the boy who had been to Acapulco. 'So who's your favourite tennis star?'

Tony shook his head. 'I watch baseball.'

'No no' John shook his head. 'Why waste time with a team, when you can get all the medals by yourself. Tennis is great. You haven't watched the US Open final last year when…'

Tony noticed the teacher returning and placed a warning finger on his lips. The teacher paused at their table. 'You haven't got anything written down yet. Get on with it.'

'We were just discussing some ideas, sir' John told him with the assurance of the very wealthy. It wasn't a complete lie either, Tony decided, and had to bite on his lip to keep from grinning.

'Well I'll hear them in ten minutes' he said and walked off.

'Now then, where were we? Let me show you some of the best players.'

'Tony wouldn't know a thing about tennis. He probably lives in a small house with ten brothers and sisters and old grandparents and they wouldn't own a racquet between them' Dennis remarked.

Tony raised his head and stared back. 'You don't know anything about me.'

The teacher rapped on the board with a pointer, startling Tony who had just received a short biography on the top 80 tennis players. 'Alright, class discussion. Group 1.' Group 1 gave some remarks about disasters at sea. They failed to impress the teacher. 'Group 2.'

'We're still in the process of finalizing our argument' John said. 'Could we go later?'

'This is the first day, so I'll excuse you. Now I suggest you find some points pretty quickly.'

'Tony, the only tragedy I know about is losing in the Davis Cup finals. You think of something to say.'

Tony grabbed the poetry book and rapidly read the poem again. When the teacher called their group again he rose. 'The protagonist was a tragic hero because he was too loyal. The guy knew you don't go out to sea in the winter coz it's too rough, but loyalty to his king made him go and die.'

The teacher stared at him in silence for a moment before turning to the board and rephrasing what he had said. 'Well done Group 2.'

'Wow Tony –that was great. You sit with me in English everyday, ok?'

Tony felt relieved. Nothing was worse than standing alone while others settled into groups. He followed John to the next class and stood uncertainly by the door. John turned to him. 'You speak a little Spanish?'

'I do.'

'Then sit here.' His perfect Spanish was soon discovered however and he was sent instead to study French.

The day wore on. John sat next to him at lunch. He introduced a few of the others. The boy from the skiing holiday proved highly entertaining. Next came a science class which also passed rapidly. Some text books were handed out and they were told to read the first two pages.'

'Well Tony, how was it?' his mother asked as she picked him up.

'Some of the boys are ok. There's one, called John, who's going to follow the tennis circuit round the world once we're through with school. There's some nasty ones though.'

The first week passed. Tony made a few friends in his classes and even made the basket ball team. That irritated Dennis further –and he seemed to think up some new insult daily. Tony grew to hate him.

'Now today we'll discuss gravity.' The science teacher wrote the word on the board. 'That's what keeps your bodies sitting here. There was a famous physicist named Newton. Some of you may have heard of him. Now he was sitting under the apple tree one day when an apple fell on his head…'

The class laughed. The teacher tapped his pointer sternly against the board.

'No way,' Tony heard himself saying. 'Next thing you'll be telling us, it was a banana!'

The class laughed louder. The teacher stared at Tony in astonishment, unused to such interruptions. 'Tony, I will not have the class disrupted. Go stand in the corner and keep quiet.'

He bit his lip and went to the corner.

'Now then, get into groups of four.' The teacher handed out a piece of metal and a rubber the same size. 'Throw them down 20 times at the same time and note which falls sooner.'

John's group moved to the table closest to Tony. He watched as they dropped the items. The teacher wandered around listening to results. 'Obviously the metal falls first, it's heavier' said John.

'John, no,' Tony called. He beckoned and his friend joined him. 'When people beam down to alien planets they all land at the same time. Whether they are big or small. It's coz of the alien planet's gravity. Gravity is the planet's force.'

'So?'

'So all objects should fall at the same time as they're pulled with the same strength.'

The teacher turned. He walked up to the corner. Tony was afraid he would be told off for talking but the teacher smiled instead. 'Well done. I appear to have one student who uses his brains. Go join your group.'

School would have been almost perfect without a few boys led by Dennis who never allowed him to forget he didn't belong in their circle. After a while the science teacher even came to expect a few wise comments from him, asking him if he had anything further to say when he remained silent. Yes, school was certainly entertaining, and so were the handful of occasions when he had skipped a day.

Tony stood on a foot which had gone numb. The returning sensation almost hurt. How long had he sat there in the same position? Instinctively he glanced at his left wrist. He gritted his teeth remembering his watch being removed together with his clothes. He had been most reluctant to part with it, undoing it only after he stood naked. After he had been 'asked' twice. It had been thrown carelessly onto a desk by the officer who searched him. Michelle's gift which he had worn daily for the previous two years was laid in a box. His wrist felt naked without it.