Albert Carrie & young Nick are war-time evacuees whose lives get so tangled up with the people theyve come to live among that the war & their real families seem to belong to another world. Carrie & Nick are billeted in Wales with old Mr Evans who is so mean & cold & his timid mouse of a sister Lou who suddenly starts having secrets. Their friend Albert is luckier living in Druids Bottom with warm-hearted Hepzibah Green & the strange Mister Johnny who can talk to animals but not to human beings. Carrie & Nick visit him there whenever they can for Hepzibah makes life exciting & enticing with her stories & delicious cooking. Gradually they begin to feel more at ease in their war-time home but then in trying to heal the rift between Mr. Evans & his estranged sister & save Druids Bottom Carrie does a terrible thing which is to haunt her for years to come. Carrie revisits Wales as an adult & tells the story to her own children.