Divorcing parents are a nightmare to live with, as well as visit, and as for the dating game they subject themselves to - well, just don't go there. Especially when Frank's about, which he usually was. Frank is fourteen-year-old Michael Roberts' best mate. They'd been friends since they first started school. Harcourt is the story of a week in their lives. A week which they, nor any of their fellow pupils, who witnessed what went on in Harcourt Academy's playground that fateful Wednesday, will ever forget.
Neither scholarly or sporty, life at Harcourt isn't much fun for Michael. In fact, he hates school and the only thing he looks forward to, besides the end of the last lesson on a Friday, is break-time. At least then he can catch up with Frank, Gilesy and Shez. But after a somewhat disastrous Sunday out with his dad and new girlfriend - as well as Frank, of course - Monday is cruelly disrupted by the loathed Marcus Brown. Subjected to classroom humiliation, Michael has never had it so bad, and the downward spiral continues when he and Frank are attacked on their way home by Brown, his older brother and their gang. Could life get any worse?
Well maybe for Shez, it already has. A shocking dinnertime confession moves one of the boys so much that an unprecedented sequence of events is brought to a bloody and savage climax. This is secondary-school life in England today. This is Harcourt.