The three Pearce siblings attend their grandmother's funeral with no plan established for their future guardianship.

Mr. Engersoll advises the children to evacuate north, hide their grandmother's death, and endear themselves to a billet family.

Miss Collins bids the siblings an emotional farewell as they depart for evacuation with St. Michael's school.

The evacuated children stand in a village hall as townspeople mill through and choose which children to foster.

The Forresters reluctantly agree to foster all three siblings after Anna refuses to leave without her brothers.

The children discover the village lending library and meet the warm and engaging librarian, Mrs. Müller.

Edmund hides a dead snake in Simon Forrester's bed to retaliate against the twins' relentless bullying.

The Forrester twins graffiti the school with the word 'VACKIES' and plant a paint can in Edmund's bag to frame him.

The Forresters expel the children and Miss Carr places them with the impoverished and resentful Mrs. Griffith.

Mrs. Warren leaves the village permanently after receiving news that her husband has been killed in the war.

Mrs. Griffith allows her daughter Penny to tear up the children's books for use as paper in the outdoor toilet.

Edmund confronts Mrs. Griffith over the books, she strikes him across the face, and the siblings flee the house.

Mrs. Müller spots Edmund's welt at the Nativity Play and firmly insists on taking all three children home with her.

Mrs. Müller receives a letter from Switzerland confirming that her husband has died in Berlin.

The children overhear Mrs. Müller tell Miss Carr they could hang the moon and that evening ask her to adopt them.

The three Pearce children are left without a guardian after their cold grandmother dies, and their solicitor proposes a risky plan: evacuate to the English countryside and secretly seek adoption from a foster family. Their first billet with the Forresters proves hostile, as the twins bully them until they are framed for vandalism and expelled from the house. Their second billet with the impoverished Mrs. Griffith is neglectful and ends in violence when she strikes Edmund on Christmas Eve. A kind librarian, Mrs. Müller, rescues them that same evening after witnessing Edmund's injury at the Nativity Play and standing up to Miss Carr. Tragedy strikes when Mrs. Müller learns her missing husband has died, but the children support her through her grief just as she has supported them. The story reaches its emotional climax when the children, having overheard her declare her faith in them, finally ask Mrs. Müller to become their mother.

The headline story of three orphaned siblings searching for a new family.

Edmund steals sweets and taunts the vicar at the grandmother's funeral while Anna reads under a settee.

Each sibling carefully chooses one book to bring on the evacuation, each selection revealing their distinct personality.

Edmund gets motion sick on the northbound train, soils his clothes, and earns Miss Carr's lasting animosity.

The Forrester twins sprint away and ditch the siblings on their very first walk to school together.

The twins steal all of Edmund's packed sweets and Mrs. Forrester dismisses his accusation without investigation.

Anna eavesdrops on Mrs. Müller and a friend named Florence and learns the librarian is unpopular among villagers.

The evacuees are bused to a cinema to watch Pinocchio, only the second film the Pearce siblings have ever seen.

Miss Carr announces that the evacuees will put on a Nativity Play as a goodwill gesture toward the village.

The children do weekly grocery shopping for Mrs. Griffith and discover she cannot afford the items on her own list.

Mr. Forrester apologizes to the children at his butcher shop and gives them free liver out of guilt.

The children wake in the night to see Coventry burning on the horizon after the city is bombed nearby.

The WVS holds a clothing swap and Anna soon discovers she has caught nits from her new winter coat.

Mrs. Müller carefully combs out Anna's nits and reveals that her German husband vanished after returning to Berlin.

William punches a Forrester twin in a snowball fight to stop him from burying Edmund face-first in a snowdrift.

Miss Carr privately tells Mrs. Müller that the victory garden completely changed her opinion of the three Pearce children.

While the Pearce children search for a family, their daily experiences reveal both the cruelties and small kindnesses of life as evacuees in wartime England. The Forrester twins' bullying begins subtly, from ditching the siblings on their first walk to school to stealing Edmund's sweets, while the children find comfort in books and in Mrs. Müller's welcoming library. Life with Mrs. Griffith exposes the children to real poverty for the first time, from the shock of grocery shopping with too little money to waking in the night to see a nearby city bombed and burning on the horizon. The WVS clothing swap brings nits, which Mrs. Müller handles with quiet compassion while sharing the truth about her German husband's disappearance. The children's victory garden slowly shifts the village's hostility toward the evacuees, and even the stern Miss Carr eventually acknowledges that her opinion of the three siblings has been entirely transformed.

The smaller moments and secondary scenes that shape the children's journey.

The siblings realize they have no guardian and wish aloud that their beloved housekeeper Miss Collins could raise them.

Miss Collins acknowledges she loves the children deeply but is too old to be a proper mother to them.

The WVS president declares Mrs. Müller an unsuitable foster mother when Anna suggests her as the children's next billet.

On their first night at the Forresters', one of the twins calls the siblings 'filthy vackies' after the lights go out.

Mrs. Forrester reveals a cold and dismissive attitude toward Mrs. Müller when the family encounters her at the library.

The Nazis invade and occupy France, making the threat of war feel shockingly close to the children's London home.

Mrs. Müller's gardening tutorial attracts only six attendees, exposing how fully the village has isolated her.

The siblings arrive at Mrs. Griffith's house and realize for the first time that their care is a source of income.

Mrs. Griffith reveals that her husband was killed in the war and that she has received no army payments since.

Mrs. Griffith sends William and Edmund to kill rats at a farm so the household can earn extra money.

Edmund sits in uncharacteristic silence beside William in the bathroom after William panics over a newspaper photo of the Blitz.

Edmund proposes planting a community victory garden at school to help Mrs. Müller make friends with the villagers.

Mrs. Müller petitions the town council separately from Edmund's request to Miss Carr and secures their approval for the garden.

Edmund proudly calls himself a 'filthy vackie' to reclaim the slur when the Forrester twins come to threaten the garden.

Mrs. Müller tearfully agrees to adopt the children, confessing she never let her mind speak what her heart was feeling.

The story's emotional core is built from a series of turning points that gradually reshape every character involved. From the opening revelation that the children have no guardian and Miss Collins is too old to step in, to the WVS president dismissing Mrs. Müller as an unsuitable foster mother, the children face obstacle after obstacle in their search for a real family. Their time with the Forresters exposes the village's deep prejudices against evacuees and against Mrs. Müller herself, while their placement with Mrs. Griffith forces them to confront both poverty and physical abuse firsthand. Through every hardship, the siblings' bonds deepen and their capacity for empathy grows, culminating in Edmund's inspired idea for a community victory garden that begins to heal the fractures between evacuees and villagers. The story concludes with Mrs. Müller joyfully and tearfully agreeing to adopt the three children, fulfilling the hope that drove every difficult choice they made throughout the novel.