The first day of secondary school was nothing like Percy had imagined.
The building itself loomed on the hilltop above the village—an expanse of aged red brick and sharp-edged glass, surrounded by chain-link fences and trimmed hedges. It felt more like a fortress than a place of learning. Inside, the halls stretched long and narrow, each corridor buzzing with noise—rucksacks thudding against lockers, the squeal of trainers on polished floors, voices colliding in a thousand overlapping conversations Percy wasn't part of.
He walked through the crowded entrance hall feeling like a lamb herded into a strange pen. Gone were the familiar teachers who'd known him since he was five. Here, the adults wore ID badges on blue lanyards and spoke quickly, too quickly. Even the way they said his name sounded different. Formal. Cold.
The air inside smelled of disinfectant, printer ink, and something fried from the canteen kitchens. Percy found his form group only after being directed by a tall girl with braces who didn't wait for a thank-you. His assigned desk was beside a window that overlooked the rear bins.
That first day crawled. Lessons passed in a blur. Teachers flitted between whiteboards and smart screens, laying down expectations with military precision. There was a timetable to memorize, rules to recite, homework platforms to log into. Percy's head buzzed by lunchtime.
When the final bell rang, it felt like waking from a bad dream. He walked home the long way round, choosing the quieter footpath that ran past the allotments and down by the cow pasture. Snow met him at the lane near the hedgerow, tail wagging furiously, and he knelt in the muddy grass to bury his hands in her soft white fur. He didn't speak, but Snow understood. She always had.
At home, the air was softer. The smell of baking filled the kitchen—his gran's oat biscuits cooling on the windowsill, their cracked tops golden and sweet. Elise poured him tea without asking questions. His father gave a grunt from the armchair but nodded, a quiet signal of solidarity. They didn't press him for details. Percy didn't want to explain how he felt like a stone dropped into deep water, unseen and sinking fast.
And then, just as he thought things might begin to settle, Gran Nora began to cough.
At first, it was the kind of small, papery cough that older people sometimes got in autumn, just when the wind picked up and the days grew shorter. But it lingered. She moved slower. Her hands, once steady as they kneaded dough or pressed flower bulbs into soil, began to tremble. She stopped going out to her greenhouse. Her teacups sat half-full on the table. The vitality that had been so much a part of her—the warmth in her eyes, the way she hummed old folk songs as she chopped vegetables—faded into a quiet stillness.
By October, when the first frost came and the sheep's breath curled visibly in the morning light, Gran Nora no longer left her armchair by the fire. The whole house seemed to lean inward, the walls drawing closer around her as though trying to keep her there.
Percy watched the changes in silence. He didn't know how to speak about it, especially not at school, where his classmates seemed to talk only about social media trends, upcoming matches, or the next minor scandal in the cafeteria queue. His teachers, though not unkind, were too busy for subtle pain. They marked his incomplete homework with tired red crosses and said things like, "You're falling behind, Percy. Again."
Then came the worst morning.
It was just before lunch. Percy had been juggling a tray in the canteen—something sticky with gravy, watery peas, and a glutinous lump of mashed potato—when it tipped forward and crashed to the floor. The clang echoed, followed by the inevitable burst of laughter from a nearby table. Percy's face burned. He bent to gather the tray, heart pounding, when the school receptionist appeared at the doorway.
She called his name softly but urgently.
He was needed at home.
The bus ride back was endless. Every stop felt like a punch to the ribs. His thoughts spun into awful possibilities, each one worse than the last. When the farmhouse came into view, he sprinted the last hundred yards, Snow running beside him, sensing the fear in his gait.
Inside, the house was dim and far too quiet. Elise met him at the door. She didn't need to say anything.
Gran Nora was in her armchair, eyes closed, her chest rising with slow, shallow breaths. Percy knelt beside her and took her hand. For a moment, she opened her eyes and managed a faint smile. "You'll be alright, love," she whispered. "You've always had good soil under your feet."
He didn't let go until the fire burned low and her breathing faded into silence.
She passed before dawn, the first frost glittering on the barn roof outside.
The days that followed were leaden.
Percy moved through them as though underwater. School became a blur of emotionless hours. Teachers offered short condolences but quickly shifted back to lessons. His peers tried awkward kindness—clumsy pats on the shoulder, quick smiles—but it all felt hollow. Percy didn't want words. He wanted his gran back in the garden, humming softly to the petunias.
The farm felt quieter without her. Colder, too. Elise did her best to carry on, keeping to the kitchen routines with stubborn care. Matthew, more silent than ever, took to working the land with a quiet ferocity, his grief buried in tasks—mending fences, tending cattle, checking equipment twice over. The rhythm of the seasons helped hold them together, even if no one quite said it aloud.
One chilly January morning, Matthew stopped with Percy near the edge of the pasture. They were feeding the sheep, and a thin layer of hoarfrost blanketed the grass like spun sugar.
"Look there," Matthew said, pointing to the hedge.
A patch of green pushed through the whiteness—snowdrops, fresh and brave.
"They always come first, even after the worst winters," Matthew murmured. "That's how you know the ground still remembers spring."
Percy didn't reply, but he bent down and gently brushed his fingers against the petals.
It was in the months after Gran's death that Percy's distance from school deepened—but it also drew attention.
One afternoon, after a lab session in which he'd surprised everyone by explaining how silage fermentation worked better than anyone else in the class, Mr. Clarke, his science teacher, pulled him aside.
"You've got a sharp mind, Percy," he said, not unkindly. "You just don't always show it. Don't let things hold you back."
It wasn't much, but it planted a small seed.
Not everyone saw Percy's potential. To most, he was just the quiet kid with the muddy boots who spent lunchtimes drawing in his notebook or watching the sky.
But then came the fight.
It happened in November, on the muddy lane near the edge of the farm, just past the beech trees where the blackbirds liked to nest. Percy had taken the long way home, letting Snow run ahead while he enjoyed the solitude.
The bullies arrived in a pack of three—lanky boys who always wore too much cologne and laughed a little too loudly. They stepped in front of him, blocking the path with the easy arrogance of boys who thought consequences didn't apply to them.
"What's the farm freak doing out this far?" one of them jeered. "Shouldn't you be milking something?"
Percy didn't rise to it. He kept walking.
That was when the shove came.
It knocked him sideways into the hedgerow. His coat snagged on the brambles, and he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood.
Another push. More laughter.
And then something changed.
Percy moved—fast. Too fast.
He grabbed one of the boys by the sleeve and twisted hard, sending him tumbling into the ditch. Another lunged, but Percy stepped aside and swept his leg, tripping him flat onto the muddy path. The third backed away, wide-eyed.
Snow barked once, sharp and protective.
Within seconds, it was over. The boys scattered, yelling curses as they fled.
When the teacher found him, Percy was alone. As always.
At school the next day, Percy sat through detention while the boys strutted free. The injustice burned hotter than any bruise.
By the time GCSEs came, Percy had little left to give. School had become a gauntlet of ticking clocks and mounting pressure. But he tried. He studied late, poring over revision books by the fire. Elise quizzed him over breakfast. Even Matthew offered quiet encouragement in his way, offering extra farm chores as a reward rather than a punishment.
He didn't ace the exams—but he passed. Barely. English and Maths were close calls. But science and agriculture lifted his average just enough.
The letter came a week later.
He'd been accepted into the Agricultural Sciences T-Level program.
At dinner that night, Matthew set down his fork and gave Percy a long look before nodding. "You've got a real chance now, lad. Make it count."
Elise smiled and passed him another helping of roast parsnips. "We're proud of you."
Snow rested her chin on his foot, warm and watchful.
Outside, the fields waited. The year was turning again.
And for the first time in a long while, Percy felt ready to meet it.