At age seven, Rusty was sent to the United States to live in relative safety with an American family during World War II. Returning to England five years later, she finds her mother cold and distant, her father cruel and the boarding school to which she is sent unnecessarily harsh and strict. The detailed story of change and adjustment is most memorable for its strong, complex female characters who refuse to conform to traditional roles. (Age 14 and older)

WW2 has just ended and twelve-year-old Rusty comes back home to Britain after being evacuated to the US. The greyness and bleakness of life in England is a shock, but even worse is adapting to the strict discipline of her family, including a brother she's never met, after the warmth and openness of her adopted American family. Rusty is sent to an horrific boarding school, before finally running away as her search for happiness becomes more and more desperate.