Protagonist VS Antagonist | Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Standish Treadwell is an okay kid. He is the 15 year old protagonist, narrator and main character of Maggot Moon. So far in the novel he has been bullied by prefects, seen to have a reading and writing age of around 4 years, and made the mistake of going over the wall to get a ball with his bud Hector. Well, all humans have those sides. His hero side is not too bad, but could use some working on. One heroic action was trying to stop his teacher from kicking Little Eric to death... but he failed that. Another one was standing up to Mr Gunnell, but sadly that was what led to Lil' Eric laughing at Mr Gunnell till he couldn't take it anymore.

So far the biggest antagonist is the government as they are watching everyone with cameras, bugs and spies. They are currently antagonising students and teachers at Standish's school through an intelligent-looking cloaked proxy with a gun, who I will refer to as "Cloakman."

Another antagonist (before being shot by Cloakman) was Mr Gunnell. This short-tempered, mean-spirited government fanatic of a teacher had done many offences against children such as beating them with a cane. After killing Eric, Hans Fielder (one of Standish's prior antagonisers) stood up for Standish as he had tried to save Eric. Cloakman believed the truth and shot Mr Gunnell in the face after seeing Eric's tarpaulin covered body.

The very first antagonists were the prefect Hans Fielder and his gang, who wore long trousers unlike the usual shorts. They were bullying Standish because they believed he was a dumb runt compared to them. After a bench was put in the far corner of the playground, they used that as a screen to hide the beating on him and other kids they considered "runts."