It is the story of an English-speaking South African boy named Peekay who confronts challenges from this childhood. His mother has a nervous breakdown, so he is raised by a Zulu wet nurse, Mary Mandoma, nanny. He is sent to a Afrikaans boarding school, where he is harassed as he was the youngest boy in the school. The students calls him Piskop and rooinek. An older boy, the Judge, punishes him for his bedwetting with verbal and physical abuse. The Judge is a Nazi sympathizer, and he has a hatred for the English.
Peekay returns home from school after a year, his nanny calls a medicine man named Inkosi-Inkosikazi to cure his bedwetting. The following year, Peekay returns school with his problem solved and with a spirit of “power of one”. Peekay is excellent in his studies, but he maintains a camouflage to hide it from his fellow students and teachers. He finds that this is a good way to beat the system and avoid unnecessary abuse. But at the end of the year, the Judge forces Peekay to eat feces, and kills his beloved chicken.
Travelling to Barberton to meet his Grandpa, he met Hoppie Groenwald, a boxing champion in train. Hoppie shows Peekay his boxing gloves. This episode inspired peekay to be the welterweight champion of the world. In Barberton, Peekay also meet a German professor, Karl von Vollensteen, to whom Peekay refers as "Doc." Doc teaches Peekay piano lessons. When Doc got arrested, Peekay visited him in jail for Piano lessons and also attends the prison's boxing squad. A prisoner Geel Piet, teaches him to box, and Peekay leads the team- the Barberton Blues to a victory. Peekay passes his Royal College of Music exams and also wins the Eastern Transvaal under-twelve boxing title. With the help of his guides, Peekay is accepted into the prestigious Prince of Wales school in Johannesburg.
At the Prince of Wales, Peekay partners with the son of a Jewish millionaire, Morrie Levy. Morrie becomes Peekay's manager and they setup different business and even scams to collect money. They pull off the first win of the school in many years. Peekay starts coaching boxing lessons with South Africa's famous coach Solly Goldman. Peekay defeats Gideon Mandoma, the son of his beloved Nanny, and become the face of win. In the last year of school, he faces the death of Doc and not earning a Rhodes scholarship, therefore missing his chance to join Morrie (Hymie) at Oxford to study law.
As a result, Peekay takes a year off of boxing and academics and goes to work in Northern Rhodesia's copper mines to build up his muscles for boxing. At mines, he meets Rasputin and they become close friends. When Peekay has an accident in his shaft, Rasputin saves Peekay, but gives his own life up instead. Rasputin names Peekay as his beneficiary; that and his own insurance payout gives him enough to be able to attend Oxford. Before leaving the mines, he finds that he has been working for his old nemesis, the judge. Peekay puts all his tactics to knocks him out. Peekay carves a Union Jack and the letters "PK" Over the judge’s swastika tattoo.
