John is an extremely unpleasant boy. His bullying never actually becomes violent, but the whole class is terrified of him. Six years of knowing what he is like have made the children quiet and subdued. The teachers dislike him because he throws tantrums, but his very wealthy parents actively support the school financially, and so everyone feels bullied. Told from many different points of view, but mainly from Sam's, Johns's latest victim, the story has cuckoos as a theme. The children are doing a project on the bird, and it is used as a metaphor for both Sam and John - Sam because he was abandoned as a baby and adopted into a loving family, and John because he is an only child, supremely spoiled by high-flyer parents. Because we see the whole of the story from different points of view - the harried head teacher who refuses to believe her anti-bullying policy isn't working, Sam's parents badly affected by redundancy, John's mother who fiercely loves her unpleasant son, the class teacher who complacently believes she can handle any child, and Sam himself, the worm who finally turns - we see why the problems build. The one aspect I found hard to believe was that John's mother had not twigged that her son has learning disabilities. An all-too-believable, hard-edged story which may or may not have a positive ending.