For ages 12+. Shortlisted for the CBC Award 2000. Andrew Kinnear has dreamt of becoming a ship's engineer and travelling the world. But as his apprenticeship at Dalrossan Dockyard begins, he quickly realises there is much more to his dream that he's bargained for. There are unwritten rules in his new workpace that he will break at his peril - a fearsome pecking order, and strange rites of initiation ... Who are his allies, and who are his enemies? In sorting this out, Andrew can only watch in horror as the situation gets worse - much worse. From the author of See How They Run comes a tense and gripping novel that challenges the authority of 'traditions' and what it takes to be a man.