Ada Smith has spent her entire life locked in a one-room apartment in London by her mother, who is ashamed of Ada's clubfoot. When World War II begins and children are evacuated from the city, Ada escapes with her younger brother Jamie to the English countryside, where they are billeted with Susan Smith, a grieving, reclusive woman. For Ada, the war is not a disaster but a liberation — her first taste of fresh air, horseback riding, and the radical idea that she might be worth something. But the war will end, and Mam will want her children back.

Ada Smith is ten years old and has never left her family's one-room London flat. Her mother — called Mam — keeps Ada hidden because of her clubfoot, a congenital condition that makes her right foot twisted inward. Mam considers Ada's foot a source of shame, a deformity that reflects badly on the fam...