Ada lives confined to a one-room London flat by Mam, who is ashamed of Ada's twisted clubfoot.

Ada steals Mam's shoes and escapes the flat with Jamie in the early morning to join the evacuation.

Village families reject Ada and Jamie one by one until they are the only two evacuated children left unchosen.

Lady Thorton carries Ada to her car and drives the children to the reluctant home of Susan Smith.

Ada spots a bright yellow pony through the bushes at Susan's house and decides she wants to live there.

Susan bathes the children, bandages Ada's bleeding foot, and immediately identifies her condition as a clubfoot.

Dr. Graham confirms Ada and Jamie are severely malnourished and provides Ada with a pair of crutches.

England and Germany officially declare war on the same morning Jamie wets the bed for the first time.

Susan walks into Jamie's classroom and discovers his left wrist has been tied to the desk by his teacher.

Ada accuses Susan of neglecting Butter's painful untrimmed hooves, and Susan apologizes and learns proper horse care.

Ada helps injured soldiers at a Dunkirk medical hall and watches a wounded man die before she can write his letter.

Ada spots a suspicious man rowing ashore and, after demanding a superior officer, helps police arrest a spy.

Mam arrives at Susan's home, strikes Ada, and forces both children onto a train back to London.

Ada confronts Mam, who admits she never wanted children, and Ada promises to leave with Jamie by morning.

Ada and Jamie emerge from a London bomb shelter to find Susan searching through the rubble for them.

Ada begins the novel as a girl trapped in a one-room London flat, hidden from the world by a mother ashamed of her clubfoot. The outbreak of World War II gives Ada and Jamie the chance to escape and find shelter with Susan Smith, a reluctant caretaker who quickly proves to be everything Mam is not. Under Susan's care, Ada grows physically and emotionally stronger, learning to walk confidently, ride a horse, and trust another person for the first time. Her courage is tested when she helps injured soldiers at Dunkirk and helps catch a real German spy, cementing her transformation from victim into hero. Mam's unexpected return pulls the children back into abuse, forcing Ada to stand up to her mother and demand a different life. When bombs strike London, Susan rushes to find the children, and all three return to Kent together as a chosen family.

Ada's journey from abused prisoner to courageous young hero.

Ada teaches herself to walk alone in the apartment through repeated painful falls, determined to escape London.

On the train to Kent, Ada watches a girl ride a pony effortlessly over a stone wall.

Ada sees her own reflection in the train station bathroom mirror and does not recognize the girl staring back.

Susan takes Ada on errands with her new crutches, including grocery shopping, clothes shopping, and a first shoe fitting.

Susan confesses that Becky, her best friend and housemate, died of pneumonia three years ago and she has not slept well since.

Jamie begs repeatedly to return to London, but Ada refuses and vows to run away again rather than go back to Mam.

An airfield is rapidly constructed across the road from Butter's field, bringing the war directly to Susan's doorstep.

Margaret Thorton falls from her horse into Butter's field, and Ada rides the injured horse back to the Thorton estate.

Susan invents birthday dates for Ada and Jamie while registering them for official wartime identity cards.

Ada declines a tea invitation from the Colonel, then changes her mind too late and smashes Jamie's paper plane in frustration.

Ada visits Grimes at the Thorton stables and learns that Butter's hooves have not been trimmed in years.

Ada gets lost on a ride and discovers for the first time that the village sits close to the English Channel.

Rationing begins and Ada and Jamie grow anxious about food until Susan firmly promises she will always take care of them.

Ada's letter to Mam requesting surgery permission is returned unopened because Mam has moved without leaving a new address.

Ada and Jamie return to Kent with Susan to find their home destroyed by a direct bomb hit.

Long before Ada escapes London, she begins transforming herself by secretly teaching herself to walk despite constant painful falls. The journey to Kent opens her eyes to a world she has never seen, from rolling countryside to her own reflection in a bathroom mirror. Life with Susan fills in the gaps of Ada's stolen childhood — proper meals, new clothes, birthday celebrations, and a community of people who do not treat her as an outcast. Along the way, Ada forms unexpected bonds with Margaret Thorton, stable hand Fred Grimes, and neighbors like Stephen White. The practical demands of wartime — rationing, identity cards, a new airfield next door, and nightly blackouts — shape the rhythm of daily life for the Smith household. The novel closes with Susan, Ada, and Jamie standing before a bombed-out home in Kent, shaken but unmistakably together.

The people, places, and small victories that shaped Ada's new life.

Mam locks Ada in a cabinet under the sink overnight after blaming her when Jamie is caught stealing food.

Ada promises Jamie she will escape London with him during the evacuation if he tells her where and when to go.

Stephen White offers to carry Ada to the train station, revealing that neighbors had assumed she was not right in the head.

Susan writes to Mam requesting formal permission to have Ada's clubfoot surgically corrected by a specialist.

Ada attempts to ride Butter for the first time and is immediately thrown off, but she gets right back up.

Susan tells Ada that telling lies to keep oneself safe does not make a person a liar.

Susan marches Ada and Jamie to church to silence village gossip while admitting she avoids attending church herself.

Jamie brings home a filthy stray cat named Bovril and cares for it, and his nightly bed-wetting stops.

Ada asks Susan to teach her to read, motivated partly by wanting to keep Susan busy through her winter sadness.

Ada clears Butter over small logs for the first time during a Christmas-season ride alongside Margaret.

Susan gives Ada a green velvet dress for Christmas and tells her she is beautiful, triggering a panic attack.

Ada fully grieves the realization that Mam chose not to have her clubfoot corrected at birth when surgery was possible.

Ada discovers birth certificates for herself and Jamie while secretly searching Mam's new apartment.

A bomb raid strikes London and forces Ada and Jamie into a shelter with strangers as they prepare to flee Mam.

Susan tells Ada and Jamie she came to London because she realized that, whatever the rules said, they belonged to her.

Ada's story is driven by a series of hard-won realizations, beginning with her decision to stop hiding and escape London alongside Jamie. Each new experience in Kent chips away at the lies Mam planted in Ada's mind — that her clubfoot is her fault, that she deserves to be hidden, that she is unworthy of kindness. Susan's steady presence teaches Ada that lying to survive is not shameful, that she is capable of learning, and that she is genuinely loved. Moments like Butter's first jump, the Christmas panic attack, and the arrival of a cat named Bovril trace Ada's slow emotional thawing. The confrontation with Mam in London forces Ada to accept the truth about her mother's choices and find the courage to walk away a second time. By the time Susan explains that she came to London because Ada and Jamie simply belonged to her, Ada has fully arrived at a sense of home and self-worth.