The Midnight Gang

The children and Porter are taken into the hospital principal’s office. Sir Strillers names the rules and laws that they have broken. Tom claims he was the ringleader, but Robin and Amber do the same. George denies everything and says he would never have wanted to fly via balloons. Porter ultimately accepts all the blame, telling the principal that the children’s behavior resulted entirely from his decisions, filling “their young minds with crazy ideas” (315).

Strillers sends the children with Matron, who promises to keep them in her sight. As the children walk away, they hear the principal shouting reprimands at Porter. Tom asks what will happen to Porter, but Matron only says they will never see “that dreadful man” (321) again. She also claims their “revolting” group activities are done.

Tootsie arrives with only one cornflake and a ketchup packet for Tom, and nothing for the others, blaming Strillers’s cuts to the hospital budget. Matron announces Porter has been “sacked” (fired), and Tootsie worries for him. She reveals that Lord Funt Hospital was all Porter ever knew for a home, as his mother abandoned him there as an infant.