One afternoon, Tyke goes to the headteacher's office and overhears some teachers discussing the possibility of Danny going to a special school instead of the local comprehensive.

Tyke then decides to help Danny cheat in the annual verbal reasoning test to ensure they can both attend the same local secondary school, Dawson Comprehensive.

Tyke tries to reveal the truth about cheating on the test but gives up after nobody believes her, and her sister tells her that her father will not make her attend this establishment.

Suspecting that the actual thieves are school bullies Martin Kneeshaw and Kevin Simms, Tyke tries to convince the headmaster that they framed Danny.

After Danny returns home, Tyke decides to abandon the hideout after realizing it is no longer a place for secrets and adventures.

In the hospital, Tyke confesses to Mr Merchant about cheating in the verbal reasoning test and tells him all about the final term at school – namely her efforts to help Danny.

Up to the end of the penultimate chapter, the narrative is written without directly revealing the protagonist's sex, although the characteristics suggest that Tyke is a boy.

[4] She [Mrs. Somers] used my real name, the one I hate, so I pulled my worst, most horrible face at her, the slit-eyed, yellow-tooth, ears-wiggling monster-from-the-center-of-the-earth one.Only at that moment, Mrs Somers came round the corner, stopped, spoke to Sir, looked up, saw me and shouted, her face red and corrugated: "Get down at once, Theodora Tiler, you naughty, disobedient girl!

[4] In the book Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, Mary Cadogan writes how Tyke Tiler "demolishes many accepted ideas about aspirational and experiential differences between boys and girls.

[13] Bhagirath Khuman and Madhumita Ghosal write that reactions like these to Tyke Tiler demonstrate the strange notion that "supposedly male characteristics are only suitable to boys' characters and that that is how they should be portrayed.

[15][16] After discovering Tyke's gender, the reader is – as Victor Watson comments in his article on multi-layered texts – "in the know", and thus the book warrants re-reading.

[17] In the book, Tyke Tiler's relationship with her friend Danny Price represents a child's perspective of how children with disabilities are treated by others and typified by adults.

"[18] Furthermore, Mary Anne Prater writes how this book is an example of a story where a character with learning difficulties attends a school which is identified as an inappropriate environment.

Catherine Nichols writes how this kind of relationship functions as a way to demonstrate to the reader that the protagonist is a good person, rather than giving Danny more to do in the story.

The characters in the book largely resemble the characters they play in this performance: the part of King Arthur goes to Tyke's trusted friend Ian Pitt, the cunning Guinevere and Morgan le Fay go to unfavourable classmates Linda Stoatway and Lorraine Fairchild, and the part of noble Sir Galahad goes to Danny Price.

In the story, Tyke's confrontation with the headmaster after Danny is accused of stealing Mrs Somers' watch is comparable to a hero entering a dragon's lair.

Tyke Tiler signalled a departure from that focus, instead being about older children in an urban setting with a plot more akin to everyday reality.

[26] The characters and setting were praised for resembling "real" schoolchildren and teachers, along with Kemp's "experienced ear for the lore and language of the upper juniors".

She also won an "Other Award" from the Children's Rights Workshop for a book which focussed on non-discriminatory representations of gender, race, class, or disability.

[26] In a 1986 review for The School Librarian, Elizabeth K. King wrote that the book "blew like a fresh wind through the world of children's literature, leaving a crowd of cheering girls and very perplexed boys in its wake.