The Paul Street Boys

In Budapest, a band of schoolboys holds a vacant lot between a timber yard and the tenements, the only place they have to play. The Red Shirts, who rule the nearby botanical garden, mean to take it, and war is organised with ranks, a flag and a council of war. Nemecsek, a private and the only boy without a stripe, brings more courage to it than all the officers together. The novel explores loyalty, schoolboy honour and the price the weakest pay for a common cause. Molnár treats these games with the seriousness of grave matters.