Adam and Abagail go to St Tom's

Adam and Abagail are sent to St Tom's, a small Bendictine school in the Hebrides. They meet the ever-reliable Albert, the cultured Sebastian, James who is annoying good at everything, and the morose Ibrahim. Then there's the spoilt Cecilia, the even more spoilt Mary O'Rourke, whose mother is a film star, the spiteful Mary Walker, and the unassuming Mandy. What is Mandy's secret, and why is Mary O'Rourke such friends with her?

Then children quickly realise that boarding school life isn't always easy. Alliances form and collapse, as each child struggles with his own emotional demons. The headmaster, the indomitable Fr Abbot, doesn't try to help. He believes that children should solve their own problems. So they do, but not in the way that he might have hoped.

But Fr Abbot is not the only abbot of St Tom's. Another figure, from the monastery's past, come to attend a midnight feast. And then events, which had been fast-moving but ordinary, begin to spin out of control. Adam finds himself fighting a lonely battle for freedom and for truth, against odds that seem hopeless. But then Abagail decides to poach a deer from the estate of the rich Mr Baines, and the problems are solved in the most unexpected, magical way.

Adam and Abagail presents a fairly realistic view of school life, and so comes with a parental guidance.