After three years of teaching at Truss, and inner-city sink school, Francis Gilbert has been offered a job in the English department at his old school, a nice suburban comprehensive. Like a prisoner out of Colditz, he fells like he's just landed a job in toytown. But, with Mr Morgan, the deaf old English teacher, still cackling, the staff room politics in tatters, alarming complaints from the parents and, worst of all, the memories of his own disturbed childhood suddenly rushing back at him, how long can Gilbert's dreamland last?