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Intro
At the beginning of September 1939, just after World War II begins, a government official brings William Beech, a child evacuated from London, to stay with widower Tom Oakley in the rural English village of Little Weirwold. Tom notices that William’s growth seems stunted and that he has bruises on his legs. That night, Tom searches William’s bag for his pajamas and finds a letter from William’s mother, Mrs. Beech, telling Tom that William is “full of sin” and to beat William with a belt if he misbehaves. Tom informs William that he has never hit a child and that he won’t be beating William with a belt. Then he puts William to bed in a cozy attic room.
In the middle of the night, William wakes up, having wet the bed, and vomits. When Tom finds William the next morning, he’s frightened and keeps apologizing—but Tom just takes the sheets and mattress down for washing. Then he takes William to the local doctor, Dr. Little, who diagnoses William with malnutrition. Afterward, Tom runs more errands with William tagging along. William expresses a desire to go into the local art store. Tom, who hasn’t gone inside since his artistic wife Rachel died about 40 years prior, will only let him look in the window. Yet after dropping William off at the local library to get some picture books from librarian Miss Emilia Thorne, Tom hesitatingly enters the art store. Later, Tom is carrying a package when he picks up William from the art store. At home, Tom reads to William before bed and remakes his bed with rubber sheets so the mattress won’t get soaked if William wets himself again.
The next day, the whole village of Little Weirwold gathers to hear Prime Minister Chamberlain announce over the radio that England is declaring war on Nazi Germany. Later that day, Tom, his neighbor Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Fletcher’s two older sons, and William dig a bomb shelter in Tom’s garden. After Tom and the Fletchers have constructed a shelter within the pit they’ve dug, William stays behind in the garden to cover the shelter with earth. At dusk, a boy appears and introduces himself as Zach. Zach explains that he is a fellow evacuee and suggests that he and William become friends.
The next day, Tom and William are covering the shelter with more earth when Zach swings by again. When one of Mr. Fletcher’s younger sons, George, comes by to invite William to pick blackberries, Zach invites himself along. A few hours later, Zach and William meet up with George and his friends, twin sisters Carrie and Ginnie Thatcher. Though initially the girls are annoyed to have tagalongs, the children begin talking while they pick berries and become friendly.
On the first day of school, William hopes to enter Mrs. Hartridge’s class with his new friends, but he ends up in class with the younger children because he can’t read or write. When William gets home, Tom asks him why he looks upset and, upon learning the reason, volunteers to help teach him to read and write. That evening, William learns to write his own name.
September 7, 1939, is William’s ninth birthday. That morning, various Little Weirwold villagers send him presents, and Tom gives him art supplies. Later that evening, Zach helps Tom surprise William with a party, which George, Carrie, and Ginnie also attend. William, who has never had a birthday party before, is overwhelmed with happiness.
A couple months pass. Tom and Miss Thorne give William lessons in reading and writing, while William continues his friendships with Zach, George, Carrie, and Ginnie. One night, William’s friends come over, and Zach announces that Miss Thorne plans to direct a children’s Christmas show. He convinces all the friends to participate—even William, who agrees to paint the sets. When George also tries to recruit Zach and William for the choir, Carrie complains that girls are excluded from the choir—and from the academic high school in town, which she longs to attend. Meanwhile, Zach says that he can’t join choir because he’s Jewish. William, to his own surprise, volunteers to join the choir. The next morning, he wakes and realizes that for once, he didn’t wet the bed.
In December, William has painted the sets for the Christmas show, Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and is recruited to be a line prompter. Unexpectedly, he reveals himself to be a talented actor. When the mother of the evacuee boy cast as Scrooge takes him back to London, Miss Thorne asks William to play Scrooge. To his friends’ delight, William agrees. Later in the winter, William, having learned to read and write, moves up to Mrs. Hartridge’s class. Carrie asks Mrs. Hartridge whether she can take the entrance exam for the academic high school in town, even though Little Weirwold has only sent boys before. Mrs. Hartridge says she’ll ask around.
In the spring, Tom receives a letter from Mrs. Beech, in which she claims to be ill and asks William to come visit her in London. Seeing William off at the train station, Tom asks him to write. After William arrives at the London train station, he and Mrs. Beech ride several buses back to Mrs. Beech’s apartment, where Mrs. Beech reveals that she has a new baby, which she claims was a gift from Jesus. William is alarmed to see that Mrs. Beech has taped the baby girl’s mouth shut. When he unpacks his bags, Mrs. Beech refuses to believe that he didn’t steal or beg for the presents that the Little Weirwold villagers sent home with him. He says the gifts were from friends. When she quizzes him about his friends, asking whether they attend church, he mentions that he has female friends and that his friend Zach is Jewish. Mrs. Beech, viciously horrified, beats William until he loses consciousness. He wakes up in pain, locked in a dark cupboard.
For the next four weeks, Tom waits for a letter from William but receives nothing. After he has a nightmare where he hears William calling for help, he abruptly decides to travel to London and make sure William is all right. Eventually, he finds Mrs. Beech’s locked apartment. When he tells a passing police officer he’s worried about the woman and child who live inside, the men force the door. They find William tied to a pipe inside the cupboard, sitting in his own urine and holding a dead baby girl. After the police officer calls an ambulance, Tom rides with William to the hospital. William spends a day in the hospital, where the nurses sedate him whenever he screams. When Tom learns that the authorities plan to put William in an orphanage rather than letting him go home with Tom, Tom asks himself what Rachel would do—and he “kidnaps” a sedated William, taking him by train, cart, and foot back to Little Weirwold.
It takes William a long time to recover emotionally and physically. One day, after Zach explains to him how babies are made, William asks Tom why Mrs. Beech would lie to him and say that men and women socializing was evil when she did it herself. Tom explains that Mrs. Beech was likely mentally ill. When William says that he wants to stay with Tom and never return to Mrs. Beech, Tom says the authorities wouldn’t let Mrs. Beech take him anymore. William asks why Tom “kidnapped” him, in that case. Tom explains that the authorities wanted to put him in an orphanage, but Tom wanted William to come home with him. William says that he loves Tom—and Tom, gruff and embarrassed, admits that he loves William, too.
In the summer of 1940, Tom, William, and Zach go on a vacation to the seaside. During the vacation, Zach becomes worried about his parents back in London, as Nazi German bombings of London have intensified. When the vacationers return to Little Weirwold, Carrie joyously informs Zach that she has passed the high school entrance exams. One night, several authorities show up at Tom’s and inform Tom and William that Mrs. Beech has died by suicide. One of the authorities, who runs an orphanage, says she would be willing to take William. William insists that he wants to stay at Tom’s. After the adults talk alone, Tom informs William that Tom will be allowed to adopt him.
As the school year begins, Zach receives news that his father, a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service, has been injured in London and is in the hospital. He travels to London to see his father—and is killed in the Nazi Luftwaffe’s brutal September 1940 bombings of London. For months afterward, William is numb with grief. But then, one day, he decides to teach himself to ride Zach’s abandoned bicycle. The act makes him feel feels as though Zach is still with him in spirit, and he begins to heal as a result. One day, he and Carrie bicycle down to the riverside, both wearing some of Zach’s clothes. When William returns home that evening, he notices for the first time that Tom looks old. Yet he also realizes that vulnerability is not the same in weakness. Recognizing the importance of this revelation, he says in surprise, “I’m growing!”
