55 pages • 1 hour read
Michelle MagorianA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Willie rehearses his lines for the Christmas play. George comes to collect him for carol rehearsals. Willie smiles at Tom, who is scowling at the organ, knowing that Tom is feeling nervous.
Tom plays the organ, and, initially, the choir doesn’t sing along, so taken with the sound of his playing. He admonishes them, and they sing “Hark the Herald.” Tom encourages them to sing with more enthusiasm and vigor, making them start again a number of times. They sing a few more carols, and then the choir packs up. Tom and Willie are left; Tom plays him a song he used to play for Rachel. Willie is deeply moved by the emotional tune.
Willie is pleased to be moved into Mrs. Hartridge’s class; she congratulates him in front of the class for his hard work. George is wearing a black armband; his brother, Michael, is missing and presumed dead.
Carrie stays back at lunch to talk to Mrs. Hartridge; she wants to take the exam for high school.
The children return to their classroom after lunch. They take geography and then botany. Willie feels overwhelmed, but he is proud when he scores an 8 out of 10 on a quiz on Treasure Island in England class. Mrs. Hartridge is so impressed with Willie’s painting of a rainy London street that she insists on hanging it on the wall; he is very proud. Miss Thorne announces that the next play is going to be Toad of Toad Hall.
Willie returns home one afternoon to find Tom downcast. Willie’s mother is sick, and she wants him to return home for a while.
Tom drives Willie in his cart to the train station. Both are quiet and downcast; Willie grips Sammy tightly. At the train station, Tom reminds Willie to write to him. He assures him that he’s welcome back with him and offers to send his paints or more pencils if he needs them. They share a teary goodbye.
On the train, the soldier asks Willie about his life at Little Weirwold and in London. When he sees Willie’s drawings, he assures him that her mother will be so proud. Willie isn’t sure; he doesn’t clearly remember his mother anymore. Willie is shaken awake by the soldier; they have reached London.
He sees his mother. She is expecting a subservient, gray-clad boy and is shocked by the well-dressed, confident, and filled-out boy addressing her. Willie goes to take his mother’s bag, but she angrily slaps him away. It is awkward. She finally agrees that he can take his bag. She reflects that seeing him smile is unsettling; she feels that her authority is challenged by it.
Willie gives his mother presents from the community of Little Weirwold, which they sent to wish her a speedy recovery. She is disgusted, saying that she doesn’t need charity.
As his mother calls him Willie, Will reflects that he prefers being called Will, as most of his friends call him now. Will’s mother tells him to run in their front door when no one is looking; he is confused but does as she asks. He feels sick when she touches her. He touches Zach’s poem in his pocket, which Zach wrote for Will as a leaving gift to help him feel grounded.
In their apartment, Will’s mother shows him a “surprise”: It is a new baby. The baby has tape across her mouth. Will tries to pick up and soothe the distressed baby, but Will’s mother yells at him not to touch her. Will’s mother is disgusted to hear that Zach is Jewish; she screams in horror that the devil has poisoned Willie.
Willie is smacked over the head with an object and passes out. He wakes up, stiff, cold, and sore, in the dark cupboard under the stairs; he realizes that he’s locked in. At this moment, he decides that he is no longer Willie but rather Will “inside and out.”
Tom misses Will at home. He thinks of him often and worries when he hears about bombings around London. Tom begins to feel worried when he hasn’t received a letter from Will in three weeks. He has a vivid nightmare of being trapped in a suffocating space; he imagines that he hears Will calling to him for help.
May, who is delivering the mail, tells Tom that she has a letter for Annie Hartridge; she is concerned that it will bear bad news about her husband, David. Tom goes to Mrs. Fletcher, asking if she could go to Annie Hartridge in case the news is bad. While there, he tells her that he is going to London.
In London, Tom gets directions to Deptford. He makes his way there on buses and on foot. He reaches the area where Will lives and notes that it is dilapidated and impoverished. He is caught in a crowd going to a bomb shelter and goes with them. He talks to the warden in the shelter about his mission to find Will. The warden knows of Will. A woman joins the conversation; she knows Mrs. Beech. Both locals agree that Mrs. Beech is a strange woman who keeps to herself. The woman thinks that she has gone away and sent Will to a school, but the warden takes Tom to check their home.
Outside the Beech’s flat, Sammy starts to move agitatedly, even though the warden says that the place looks deserted. Tom insists on going in. Sammy continues to bark. A policeman comes, and they break the door down. They are assaulted with a sickly smell. Sammy runs to the locked cupboard door under the stairs and begins scrabbling at it furiously.
Will is tied to a copper pipe. He cringes away from the men and the torchlight. He is emaciated, covered in sores, and sitting in his own excrement. He holds a bundle in his hands.
Tom, with whom Will seems the calmest, navigates into the small space, unties Will, and lifts him out. The warden continues to call Will “Willie”; Will says that it’s not his name. Tom explains that he likes to be called Will. Tom gently looks at the baby in Will’s arms and realizes that it is long dead. He convinces Will to hand it over, pretending that she needs an extra blanket, not wanting to distress Will further by revealing that she is dead.
At the hospital, Will is taken to the children’s ward, and the baby is taken to the morgue. Will is distressed at being separated from Tom; Tom isn’t allowed to accompany him as he is not a relative. Tom assures Will that he will wait in the hallway and will visit him first thing in the morning when visitors are allowed. Tom has a cup of tea with the warden in the warden’s post and then returns to the hospital. Sammy is not allowed in; Tom ties him up outside.
Tom is finally allowed to visit Will, who is awake but gaunt and exhausted. He is being continually sedated when he wakes up screaming, which Tom objects to. Distressed, Will tells Tom he is going to be sent to a home but that he wants to live with Tom. Tom reassures him that he will come home to live with him.
Mr. Stelton, a soft-spoken man, speaks to Tom about Will being taken to his psychiatric home for testing and schooling. Tom insists that Will is best off living with him, but Mr. Stelton is adamant.
Tom, feeling dejected, goes out to see Sammy, seeking advice from Rachel. He hears her laughingly suggest that he should kidnap him. Decisively, Tom returns to the hospital, grabs Will (who is sedated) in his arms, and takes him when no one is looking. He dresses Will, grabs Sammy, and goes quickly to the train station.
Tom walks to Weirwold, carrying Will and eventually Sammy also. He harnesses Dobbs, whom he left at Weirwold, and then continues toward Little Weirwold in the carriage. Will wakes up during the journey; Tom explains that he kidnapped him from the hospital and assures him that they are almost home.
They stop at the Littles; Zach is overjoyed to see Will, who is asleep again, safely back. Tom and Will sleep by the fire.
Will wakes, screaming, from a nightmare of looming adults with needles. As he has done many times in the last week, Tom comes up and holds him, reassuring him that he can scream as much as he needs to. Tom carries Will downstairs, washes him, cleans his bedsheets (he is wetting the bed again), and puts him by the fire. Will is exhausted and spends most of his time sleeping. He occasionally suffers from fevers. Tom stays by his bedside always.
One night, Will wakes up with a particularly horrific scream, which is haunting to Tom; it sounds like the deeply suppressed scream of a baby. Tom pats his back, and he wakes up and vomits violently. This incident is a turning point; Will begins to sleep better. Tom is relieved to see the color return to his cheeks.
Zach comes to see Will, but Tom insists that he has to wait until Will has eaten breakfast, which Tom brings to him in bed.
Zach and Will enjoy a joyful reunion; Zach bounces happily around Will on his bed. Zach happily tells Will about the news of Little Weirwold; Will pales and becomes upset when Zach tells him about Mrs. Hartridge’s new baby. Will is embarrassed to hear about how much Lucy is missing him. Zach tells him about a new maternity hospital, which leads to a conversation about sex, which Will believes is sinful, and babies. Noticing that Will seems exhausted and upset, Zach leaves.
Tom sits with Will. They discuss Trudy, Will’s little sister. Tom confirms that she’s dead. Will feels guilt over this; he tried to rock and comfort the baby, but the milk in the bottle ran out. Tom assures him that it wasn’t his fault. Will tells Tom that he loves him, and Tom returns the sentiment.
Will continues to recover. One day, he goes to see Mrs. Hartridge and her new baby. Mrs. Hartridge hands Will the baby to hold; he tenses in fear but eventually relaxes. The baby, Peggy, starts to cry, and Mrs. Hartridge breastfeeds her. Will is shocked and amazed at this. He feels his guilt about Trudy’s death fade as he understands more fully that he couldn’t give her what she needed.
Zach repairs an old bike.
The reader is positioned to celebrate Will’s triumph in entering Mrs. Hartridge’s class, the culmination of months of hard work. Through this success, Tom is implicated because of his kindness and support for Will. The Restorative Power of Compassion and Human Connection is signaled as an important theme here, as Will triumphs because he is given a safe space with a loving caregiver who supports his educational efforts.
Suspense builds toward Will’s reunion with his mother, especially as his memories of her cruelty have faded after his convalescence at Little Weirwold. He pictures “a mixture of Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Hartridge” and imagines he and his mother “smiling, laughing” (179) and embracing happily. The reality, of course, differs significantly; dramatic irony occurs as the reader has a clearer memory of Will’s crushed spirit and maimed body when he arrived at Little Weirwold and guesses at the abuse that Will is about to be subjected to again.
Mrs. Beech, who is characterized in these chapters as a twisted and hateful character, is threatened by the changes she sees in Will, who is happier and healthier than she has ever seen him: “He smiled. She stepped sharply backwards, horrified. She couldn’t remember ever having seen him smile before” (182). Mrs. Beech is an antagonist in her cruel preference for Will to be unhappy, emaciated, and living in terror. Mrs. Beech’s abuse is borne out of a desire for control, as is illustrated when she interprets Will’s smile as a threat to her authority over him. She notes that Will is talking a lot and ominously reflects that “she’d soon discipline it out of him” (183). Through omnipotent, third-person narration, the reader understands the inner thoughts of the characters, which allows them to perceive Mrs. Beech’s aggressive and violent desire for control over Will, which manifests in horrific abuse.
In terms of the theme The Restorative Power of Compassion and Human Connection, the incredible, gentle, and tender work of Tom in creating a safe space for Will’s convalescence is illustrated in his initial trust of his mother; he talks to her openly and smiles at her. Tragically, Will’s trust is misplaced. Mrs. Beech immediately starts to undo the lessons that Will painstakingly learned in Little Weirwold—principally that he is worthy of love. She attempts to reestablish the beliefs that Will arrived with, principally that he is inherently unlovable: “‘They like me.’ It felt so good to say that. ‘That’s show, Will. You’re an evacuee and they were just being polite’” (184). Furthermore, Mrs. Beech is established as being mentally unstable, with a paranoia around godliness and correct behavior; this is illustrated in her hyperbolically horrified reaction to Zach’s Judaism: “His mother let out a frightened scream. ‘You’ve been poisoned by the devil!’” (184) as well as in Mrs. Beech’s horrific and abusive choice to cover her baby’s mouth with tape to stop her from crying, as she needs “to learn a little discipline” (191).
Will’s body’s memory of her abuse is clear when she touches him, which repulses him: “Will shivered at the iciness of his mother’s rigid body. Having her arm round him made him feel nauseous” (186). This illustrates the memories carried in his gut, or his body, of the way he was treated by her, which come to terrible fruition when she yells at him, beats him savagely, and imprisons him in the cupboard under the stairs, foregrounding the theme of The Impact of Trauma and Abuse.
The contrast between Tom and Mrs. Beech as caregivers is further established in these chapters, with the two operating as character foils. The icy reception that Will receives from Mrs. Beech is contrasted with the tearful and caring farewell from Tom, which immediately precedes this: “‘If you runs out of pencils, you lets me know.’ Tom swallowed a lump in his throat. ‘I’ll miss you,’ said Will. Tom nodded. ‘Me too’” (176). Their anxiety and grief at leaving each other is palpable in this scene, which speaks to the love they feel for each other, as well as to Tom’s role as Will’s truest and more sincere parental figure. Tom’s support of Will’s art, which he understands to be an important passion, and a source of self-confidence and self-expression, symbolically contrasts with Mrs. Beech’s response to the drawing which Will presents to her: “‘I drew it meself.’ She looked at him coldly. ‘Don’t lie to me’” (190). Far from praising Will, Mrs. Beech accuses him of lying to sustain her own belief in Will’s frailty and lack of talent. Significantly, it is Tom who Will calls out to when he is locked under the stairs; Tom has become a beacon of safety and love in Will’s life: “‘Mister Tom,’ he whispered in the darkness. ‘Mister Tom. I want you, Mister Tom,’ and he gave a quiet sob (193).
A psychic connection between the two characters is implied in tom’s nightmare, where he imagines a tiny space, which the reader recognizes as the cupboard that Will is locked in, and hears Will calling out to him:
One night he awoke violently from a nightmare. In the dream, he had been locked into a tiny space with no air inside. It was as though he was being buried alive. But it was the voice that had woken him. He thought he had heard William calling out to him for help (195).
The Restorative Power of Compassion and Human Connection, embodied in the caring actions of Tom, features heavily in Will’s second convalescence at Little Weirwold. As usual, Tom seems to intuitively understand what Will needs. At the hospital, Will is repeatedly sedated to stop his violent screaming fits; Tom points out to the nurse, who explains that they are stopping his distressed screams, that “mebbe he needs to” (214). Accordingly, when Tom kidnaps Will and returns him to his home, he lets Will scream: “You scream as much as you likes” (228). Tom demonstrates his characteristic care and patience with Will’s constant feverish nightmares and bedwetting: “Tom stripped Will, and after he had sponged and dried him, he put some clean pyjamas on him and wrapped him in a blanket. He left him with Sammy curled up in the large armchair” (228). Tom’s home, including the comfy armchair by the fire, is a symbol of the old man in that it is a safe space for Will and is presented as old, lived in, and comfortable.
Will’s scream is symbolic; it is implied that it is the long-suppressed scream of a neglected toddler: “It sounded like a baby crying in despair, an old forgotten scream that must have been swallowed down years before” (229-30). The reader is reminded of Will’s sister, Trudy, whose mouth is taped shut, and imagines that Will likely received similar treatment. Tom creates a safe space for Will to express his rage and terror, long suppressed, which allows him to begin to heal from these wounds. Will’s healing is illustrated in his smile, which fills Tom with joy and relief: “[I]t was good to see Will smile again. It made Tom feel lively, rejuvenated” (231). Will’s healing is also demonstrated in his ability to trust again; he expresses his love for Tom and receives the validation of Tom’s love in return:
‘I love you.’ And instead of the cold feeling he had imagined would happen if he uttered those words, he felt a wave of warmth flooding into his stomach and through to his chest, and he beamed. Mister Tom’s face became flushed. He cleared his throat. ‘I love you too, boy’ (238).
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