Uncle Toby's Second Best Bed

Eleven-year-old Harry Winchester inherits an ornate bed from a distant relation, Uncle Toby. Despite being puzzled since he scarcely knew Uncle Toby, Harry has more important things on his mind. In the autumn he is to move to Underhill High, the local secondary school and he is anxious, especially since his older brother William is apparently much cleverer than he is. At Underhill High, Harry meets Betsy Barrow and Georgie Milton, a skilled judo player. He also meets a gang of bullies...
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Eleven-year-old Harry Winchester inherits an ornate bed from a distant relation, Uncle Toby. Despite being puzzled since he scarcely knew Uncle Toby, Harry has more important things on his mind. In the autumn he is to move to Underhill High, the local secondary school and he is anxious, especially since his older brother William is apparently much cleverer than he is. At Underhill High, Harry meets Betsy Barrow and Georgie Milton, a skilled judo player. He also meets a gang of bullies and some eccentric members of staff, including Jack Benedict, a bizarre and gifted English teacher. Harry's mum and dad arrange to have the bed moved into his room causing a series of strange events to occur. It turns out that the bed has unusual properties and the world of Harry's imagination becomes strangely intertwined with the real world. Uncle Toby's Second Best Bed is not a story about space travel or magic. Harry's journeys are in the mind as well as the body, and, at the end of the story, he has become a much wiser young person.