The First Fifty Pages

The setting of the book is in the slums of a city called Rotterdam. There is a small group of small children that are in a gang. The larger kids, bullies, always steal food from them, so they are always very hungry. Then along comes this child without a name. The leader of the gang, whose name is Poke, said he wasn't worth a bean. That name stuck, so now he is called Bean. Bean came up with this plan to get a bully to work for them, so all of the little children trapped a large kid and started beating him with stones. He used them as a way to get into the soup kitchens, and the little kids got to have some food also. The gang, with Achilles as the leader, had to prove themselves to the rest of the bullies, so that they would be taken seriously. Then all of the other bullies were mad at Achilles and his "children." One of the bullies threatened Achilles, so he ran away to be safe. Then Poke, who by the way is a girl, went to see him, because she knew where he was. He killed her, because he kept a grudge since the first time he saw her, when she and her gang took him down and made him feel powerless.