Hodder Literature: an exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use. Davie and his best friend Geordie are ordinary boys, growing up in a close-knit Catholic community in Tyneside. Then a new boy arrives. Stephen Rose has a disturbed past but he also possesses artistic talents and a strange power over people. Stephen makes astonishingly lifelike clay models and persuades Davie to help him make a clay monster who will obey his creators. The monster comes to life and seems torn between the 'good' Davie and the 'evil' Stephen. Then Steven uses the monster, Clay, to attack the local bully Martin Mould (Mouldy). Mouldy is killed and this creates a crisis of conscience for Davie. Stephen disappears and Davie gains some peace by burying Clay's remains in his garden. Was he ever real or not? As Davie says at the end of the book: 'You don't believe me. Doesn't matter. Tell yourself it's just a story, nothing more.'>