At the age of seven, Paul Watkins was roughly transplanted from his home in Rhode Island to England's Dragon School. He was greeted by a delegation of bullies who, in time, would become his friends and whose rules would become his own. A Booker Prize nominee for his novel Night Over Day Over Night and now a writer of espionage thrillers under the name Sam Eastland, Watkins powerfully evokes a world of sadistic masters and students, while chronicling his own exhilaration at discovering his capacities for learning and creativity.