Changes

Toby would appear to be lucky, having the run of an isolated country mansion on a small island off the coast of Britain. But no. His domain only exists at night, and only then because he sleeps in the day and refuses to take the 'vitamin' pills given him by the staff of an evening. He is a captive of a mansion that works as a place of exile for teenagers with the Defective gene. Whatever it would normally lead to, even having it risks becoming suddenly really quite ill, and being the cause of the night-time lift ride on the one way route to the top floor Sanatorium. But Toby has it good as these things go, the teenaged head boy almost out of the small collection of children in his Dorm, the only one not to have suffered a loss of life. But things are about to change – new inmates arrive to bulk up the numbers, and one of them, Clara, is the agent of that change. For when she stumbles on Toby's nocturnal habits she doesn't want to sleep either…

There are a couple of odd elements that don't seem to sit. This is a world where climate change problems are mentioned, and snow hasn't fallen for a hundred years, yet vinyl records are still around for a novelty plaything. Also, while Toby et al seem to have arrived before any child in the house had fallen ill there are already legends and rumours about what the Matron there had done to earlier inmates. The latter seems more of a mistake, while the former may be the author having her cake and eating it or it may be part of her brilliant way at creating an unsettling other-worldly feel. The whole mansion, with its skeleton staff of nurses and disinterested teachers, and seemingly lax security, is one thing, although the completely real way Pinborough evokes teenage life and strife, even in such a rarefied setting, is equally remarkable.