Percy and Betty Harlency leave the pub they have been running in London and take over a tea-shop in Stonebridge, a village in Kent.

Her best friend is Ruby, a girl of her age, whose parents, Lex and Gloria Richards, run the village pub.

April's other friend is Mr Greenidge, a charming, old-fashioned gentleman with blue eyes and a white beard.

He gives her presents of money and sweets; on one occasion, realizing she has lost an expensive propelling pencil, he buys her a replacement, to her deep gratitude.

He finds excuses to bring her to his home; once, when Mrs Greenidge is away, he takes her to the bedroom and makes her lie on the bed with him; once, while she is seated on his thigh, he masturbates.

But one day, they find a handkerchief dropped there; from the initial on it, April realizes it is Mr Greenidge's.

But Mr Greenidge lets slip, as if inadvertently, that there is a railway carriage, and Ruby is found.

But soon April's parents, deep in debt, have to leave Stonebridge, and the girls lose touch.

But she also believes that Mr Greenidge is killing her; she has seen him showing a strong interest in poisonous fungi.

After Mrs Greenidge's death she tells her suspicions to two adult friends and to some children at school.

She is sure that Mr Greenidge loved her and perhaps what he did was not so bad; but “he corroded my childhood with fear and anxiety and deceit.” She revisits Stonebridge and discovers Ruby's grave: she died two years previously; her children were named April and Peter.