to his friends, the worst bully in the school. Whopper was a tall, fleshy seventh-year, with a shock of greasy brown hair and a crop of acne so luxurious it looked as though someone had tap-danced on his face wearing golf shoes. At the start of term, he had transferred to Hastewicke from another school, where, it was whispered, he had committed acts of violence so appalling that only his father’s immense wealth and exalted position had saved him from criminal prosecution.Predictably, far from moderating his behavior, the incident seemed only to have emboldened him. Immediately upon his arrival at Hastewicke, Whopper instituted a reign of terror among all the younger boys. His favored victims were, naturally, anyone he considered his social inferior, which was pretty much everyone. He had a special place in his wizened reptile heart for the scholarship boys, and proceeded to make our lives hell on earth. Whopper took a creepy, almost sexual pleasure in the anticipation of his atrocities.
