Chris and his friends try to live a normal life but World War II has changed everything. They have to entertain themselves, staying at home without movies and even church, most of the time, trying to avoid Old Lady Rainey, the town Gossip and Busybody. Chris and his friends learn a great deal about cigarettes and Sex. And Polio does strike one of their friends. By the end of the war, Chris has learned much about the broken, imperfect and war mangled world around him and realizes that he must fix it.