Peter Scattergood is the kind of boy that everyone knows is going wrong, very wrong. He hasn't met anyone that he can't defy and insult or any rule that he can't ignore. Then he causes a nasty accident and seeking to escape hides in a deserted cellar underneath his school. The cellar is occupied by a dormant being of unknown origin. The being, which calls itself an eidolon, denies that it is any kind of ghost, spook, spirit, angel or anything supernatural. It insists that it is part of nature like the trees and hills. Peter rouses it from its dormant state. It became dormant after an incident in which a long ago headmaster of the school mysteriously vanished and now believes that it shares the thoughts and feelings of that headmaster, Mr Thane. It tells Peter that Mr Thane is its MATRIX and it takes up the mission to reform Peter by any means in its power as Thane would have. Immoveable force has met irresistible object and the book is the story of how that battle is resolved. The book is the first in a trilogy about Peter Scattergood.