A miracle. Really good luck. Divine intervention. Whatever you call it, it happened to Bart Rangely. What this miracle (or really good luck, or divine intervention) brought, however, was the worst experience of his life.

Everything at the beginning of Bart’s eighth-grade year at Hillbrook Middle School in northern New Jersey is completely normal. He hangs out with his friends, and they resolve to actually work to get good grades. A week after school begins, Bart wakes up with a fever and his mother stays home to take care of him. That’s not much of a story by itself, but Bart’s mom works at the World Trade Center in New York and Bart’s fever spikes on September 11, 2001. His parents work in the same office, but his dad left the family six months earlier and most likely has been killed in the attack. Suddenly, Bart, his fever and his mother are the subject of newspaper columns. One of the people who reads his story is Dr. Bratton, headmaster of Bailywell Preparatory Academy, a gray stone castle-like building overlooking Hillbrook.

The last thing Bart wants is to transfer out of his school, where his friends have known him for years, and enroll at Bailywell, which has been called “Bullyville” by those who have heard the stories. Bart’s mother, however, thinks that Bailywell will offer her son great opportunities. So he enrolls.

At Bullyville, Bart is assigned a peer mentor who will help him adjust to life at the new school. Unfortunately, this individual is Tyro Bergen, described by his classmate Seth as “the baddest of the bad,” the most notorious bully of them all. Bart quickly comes to see that all the horror stories about Tyro are true. Tyro may not be the type to beat up Bart on a regular basis, but he is a master of subtle torture, pranks carefully calculated to humiliate Bart on a psychological level. Because Tyro’s parents contribute a lot of money to the school, Dr. Bratton has a hard time believing that Tyro could be the low form of life that Bart knows he is.

When Tyro’s bullying goes too far, Bart decides to take his revenge. This act makes him a delinquent in the eyes of the administration (never mind Tyro’s behavior), and Bart is required to do community service on the juvenile ward of a local hospital. Bart meets someone special there who gives him pause regarding what he thinks about Tyro. Can Bart forgive Tyro and survive the rest of the year at Bullyville Prep?

Sometimes the scariest stories aren’t about crazed murderers or flesh-eating zombies, but the ones that focus on the quiet cruelties of everyday life. Tyro’s constant reopening of Bart’s wounds is just as edgy and suspenseful as any horror movie. You will wonder how Bart will finally deal with Tyro without succumbing to the same acts of bullying.