It’s the last day of term at the Gilda Ball Academy and time is running out: a teacher faces the sack following an anonymous allegation of child abuse…
Told within a single day, The Last Day of Term is a novel which interweaves the gritty realities of teenage life in an inner-city school with a touching and comic story of a man in crisis.
Teacher Martin Hick is about to get the promotion he’s wanted for years, and has vowed to rescue his failing marriage.
Cut to a grim council estate in east London, where Bela, an internet-addicted teenager, lives with his chain-smoking mother and aristocratic great-uncle both Hungarian emigres. Bela’s life has been ruined since Martin had him expelled from Gilda Ball a few weeks previously, and he is trying to plot his way back into the school.
So when, on the last day of term, Martin is confronted with an anonymous note accusing him of abuse, he naturally assumes Bela to be the source. The truth, as he will discover, is never quite that simple.