I am an ANTIHERO. people think I am incompetent, unlucky, clumsy, dumb, ugly, or clownish. Well, they are going to find out AREN'T THEY!"
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http://lookman.webs.com/jobadpenny.htm

CHAPTER ONE

JO HALFPENNY

Jo Halfpenny ran for his life dodging post-boxes and trees. The soles of his feet stung as he wearily slapped the hard tarmac.
“Sheesh!” He gasped, unable to run any further. Turning a corner, he flung himself sideways through a gap in a hedge and its branches raked his exposed arms and legs. He landed breathlessly hidden within his refuge, invisible behind the street nameplate for Purgatory Row. His heart tumbled beneath his burning throat.
He murmured, “At last I’m safe.” Frozen, cramped, rocking on his toes he hid while two older boys sauntered along the footpath and past him occupied in conversation. When their murmuring voices had disappeared into the distance, Jo’s moist brow tightened Sacré bleu! Jo did not recognise either boy.
Jo smarted. “Why am I such a fool I’ve run for no reason, it wasn’t Kevin at all.”

Jo slid from his tense haunches and rested his buttocks upon crisp leaf-litter and dry lawn mowings, which reminded him of the loose tobacco spread in his grandfather’s tin. He clutched his naked knees and rested his sorrowed head upon them. He felt safe in cool shaded places. A twig annoyed his ear. He shook his head and laid his ear upon his scratched arms. The biting pain lessened releasing a teardrop and he snuggled his lank hair against his arms. He asked himself, why this is happening to me. I am just like any other kid! I cannot help it if my father is away in prison. He sighed, his thoughts drifting back to his first day at school, less than a month before.

The New School
Jo looked forward to starting a new school with a clean slate, yet he trembled at the thought of beginning in year eight, starting a year later than everyone else. He fretted not knowing anyone. Guardedly he approached the school frontage dragging his feet. His skin felt cold despite the bright autumnal sun blinding him over the school roof. Then he realised by milling among identically dressed strangers made him anonymous. Jo pulled out his shirt snagged his tie and roughened his fair hair. He gritted his teeth, tossed his bag over his back. Jo stopped, frowned and blinked, seeing a seething crowd of lower school kids queuing at the school gate. He needed to push through the crowd to reach the playground, before reporting at the school office to announce his arrival.

He hunched his shoulders to sidle through the mass of unfamiliar bodies, blazer lapels flapped in his face, bony elbows scored his sides, and strange odours assaulted his nostrils.
“Oy!” A set of bony knuckles dug into his ribs.
“Get in line!” An elbow pressed against his face.
A girl’s voice squealed. “Aargh! Stop stepping on my toes!” She stamped on his foot.
He smarted hopping on one foot, and then a palm thrust against his cheek. His ears began brushing against bags, blazer buttons, trousers, skirts, and shoes until he looked up from the asphalt.
Two girls looked down at him and shouted “You perverted little rat!” They began kicking him.
He stiffened, hemmed in by legs and treading feet, as if looking up at the light through a stand of tall trees. Jo nursed his ear and bruised ribs against stabbing toes and treading feet.

Then his saviour came. “Give this kid some room. Let him get up! A red-faced boy with an open blazer bent down sweeping his arms sideways saying. “Stop pushing him!”
A divine hand dipped downwards towards Jo, who eagerly grasped it in a firmament of glowering eyes. He rose to his feet. The boy’s hand slid across his shoulder, he twitched defensively and his shoulders folded.
“You must be the new boy!” The stranger smiled and ran his fingers under his mousy fringe. “I’m Blake, Blake Tilar! You must be Sin… something Halfpenny.”
“Eh!” Jo flinched looking down at his twisted tie. No one can ever pronounce Singen properly. “Eh it’s Jo!”
“Okay Joe!” Blake frowned. “I thought it was Singe, never mind.”
Jo sensed the boy brus