[1] Dryden Park, a prep school in the remote English countryside, welcomes a new boy, Magnus (Freddie Findlay) whose father is convalescing in Paris, and whose mother has a new life elsewhere.
Magnus seeks solace in letters from his father (Edward Fox), with whom he shares a love of fine food, but the school follows a strict diet, so Magnus organizes two fellow-victims into a secret society, "The Scoffers",[a] who invade the (out of bounds) school kitchen after "lights out" to prepare sweet treats and consume their handiwork.
Others have their own guilty secrets, which help to complicate things - the headmaster has a fondness for peanut butter sandwiches as a late night snack, and Raptor and Miss Plunder, the house mother, have their own private parties.
One by one other boys are inducted into the "Scoffers", and they become more audacious as their cooking proficiency increases, culminating in a midnight birthday party for nurse Charlotte, Raptor's painfully shy but beautiful daughter.
The party, at the school's indoor pool, is interrupted by the class bully, and by Raptor, who is furious, ordering his daughter back to her room.