Chapter 1 opens on a September night in an English hospital in 1940. Ada, the 11-year-old protagonist and narrator, is due to have surgery on her ankle the following morning. She was born with a club foot; the bones of her right ankle are twisted to the right, and the bottom of her foot is turned upward. She hopes the surgery will give her a normal and functional foot. Susan Smith, Ada’s carer, sits at Ada’s bedside.

Nurses come to put blackout blinds on the hospital windows. Ada is relieved that her hospital is not in London, which is bombed nightly. Ada and her six-year-old brother Jamie were evacuated from London a year ago when the Blitz began; they have been living with Susan in a small seaside village in County Kent.

After surgery, Ada wakes with her leg in a cast. At her bedside, Jamie tearfully reveals that their mother was killed in a London bombing raid.

Ada is shocked by the news of her mother’s death, but she is also relieved. Ada and Jamie’s Mam was a cruel and neglectful parent, especially to Ada, who feared she and Jamie would never be free of Mam’s cruelty.