A Place to Hang the Moon

A Place to Hang the Moon Plot Summary

Introduction

London, June 1940. The Blitz hasn't yet begun, but death has already found its way to the nursery of twelve-year-old William Pearce and his younger siblings, Edmund and Anna. Their grandmother lies buried, their parents long gone, and their ancient housekeeper prepares to abandon them to an uncertain fate. In the drawing room of their empty house, a nervous solicitor named Harold Engersoll presents them with what he calls "a preposterous plan" - join the mass evacuation of London's children to the countryside, where they might charm some unsuspecting family into permanent adoption. Armed with nothing but suitcases, gas masks, and William's peculiar choice of the Encyclopedia Britannica as reading material, the three orphans board a train bound for a village whose name they don't even know. What awaits them is a gauntlet of foster homes - some merely indifferent, others actively hostile - where they must hide their true circumstances while searching for something that has always eluded them: a place where someone might believe they hung the moon. The war raging across Europe becomes mere background noise to their more immediate battle for survival, dignity, and the radical hope that somewhere in the English countryside, a family is waiting to be found.

Chapter 1: Orphaned in Wartime: Three Siblings and a Preposterous Plan

The funeral reception at their grandmother's house was a study in polite misery. Eleven-year-old Edmund Pearce had stationed himself in an armchair, systematically pillaging the refreshment table and stuffing iced buns into his trouser pockets. Nine-year-old Anna sat wedged between furniture and strangers, losing herself in the final pages of Mary Poppins rather than endure another conversation about their grandmother's "formidable" character. William, the eldest at twelve, circulated among the mourners with practiced politeness, thanking people for coming while privately agreeing with his siblings' assessment - they felt little grief at the old woman's passing. Their grandmother had been principled, dignified, and utterly cold. She had provided for them in the material sense while offering nothing in the way of warmth. The children had been raised more by a succession of nannies and their elderly housekeeper, Miss Collins, than by any blood relative who might have genuinely cared whether they lived or died. The funeral guests departed into the London dusk, leaving behind the scent of mothballs and the terrifying question that hung in the air like smoke: "Whatever is to be done about the children?" The answer came the following day in the form of Harold Engersoll, the family solicitor, whose ear-tufted appearance and nervous manner did little to inspire confidence in his radical proposal. "Your situation is both unique and precarious," Engersoll began, speaking to the three children huddled together on the parlor sofa. They had money - a comfortable inheritance - but no guardian willing to take on the burden of raising them. Their grandmother's will had made no provision for their care, leaving them wealthy but essentially abandoned. The solicitor's solution bordered on the absurd: join the wartime evacuation of London's children, travel to the countryside as supposed wards of their deceased grandmother, and charm their way into permanent adoption. "You would be doing just as nearly a quarter of a million other children are doing," Engersoll explained, his spectacles glinting in the afternoon light. "At the very least, evacuation will offer you the possibility of finding a permanent guardian." The children would need to be circumspect about their true circumstances - no mention of their inheritance or their grandmother's death, at least until they found a family suitable for permanent residence. Edmund pronounced the entire scheme "preposterous," but even he could see no alternative. William worried about the deception involved, Anna fretted about leaving London, but all three understood the stark reality: they had nowhere else to go. Miss Collins, their beloved housekeeper, was too old and infirm to care for them, and no relatives had stepped forward to claim them.

Chapter 2: First Billets and Bitter Disappointments: Testing the Waters

The evacuation began at dawn with a chaos of crying children, frazzled teachers, and the sharp voice of Miss Carr, their supervisory teacher, whose hawkish demeanor suggested little patience for sentiment. William, Edmund, and Anna joined the stream of London evacuees at Kings Cross station, their gas masks bouncing against their chests as they boarded the train that would carry them into the unknown. The journey westward offered glimpses of an England most of them had never seen - endless green fields replacing London's grey streets, medieval church spires piercing cloudless skies. Edmund succumbed to motion sickness spectacularly, vomiting on a hillside during a rest stop and earning a brutal public dressing-down from Miss Carr. "A billet for three is a challenge," she warned, "even for evacuees not in such states of disrepair." Their destination proved to be a picture-postcard village complete with Tudor houses, rose gardens, and residents gathered in the village hall to select their temporary charges. The process resembled nothing so much as a livestock auction, with prospective foster families examining the assembled children for signs of good breeding, manageable temperament, and freedom from vermin. The Pearce children watched their fellow evacuees disappear one by one until they stood among the diminishing remainder, increasingly desperate as afternoon faded to evening. Finally, a couple emerged from the crowd - Peter Forrester, a red-faced butcher, and his wife Nellie, whose enthusiasm for taking in "a little girl" extended reluctantly to Anna's two brothers when it became clear the siblings refused to be separated. The Forrester household initially seemed promising. Clean rooms, adequate food, and Nellie's maternal fussing over Anna suggested they had landed somewhere decent. But the butcher's twin sons, Jack and Simon, had other plans for their unwelcome houseguests. From the first morning, the twelve-year-old twins made clear that the evacuees were barely tolerated intruders whose presence disrupted their comfortable existence. The campaign of harassment began subtly - missing toothbrushes, mysteriously vanishing combs, mysterious pepper scattered through William's school bag. The theft of Edmund's carefully hoarded sweets proved the final straw, though Mrs. Forrester refused to believe her precious boys capable of such treachery. "Jack and Simon would never do such a thing," she declared, while the twins stood behind her wearing smiles of perfect innocence. The children learned their first hard lesson about evacuation: they were guests who could be ejected at any moment, and their word counted for nothing against that of the biological children in any household. They walked on eggshells, swallowed their complaints, and tried to make themselves invisible while the Forrester twins escalated their torment.

Chapter 3: Rock Bottom at Livingston Lane: When Hope Seems Lost

Edmund's patience finally snapped during a village ratting expedition - a grotesque carnival where local boys competed to murder fleeing rodents with makeshift clubs. The barbaric event left both William and Edmund sickened and traumatized, but it paled beside the humiliation that followed. Someone planted a tin of black paint in Edmund's school bag, evidence that seemed to prove he had vandalized the school building with anti-evacuee graffiti. The Forresters' patience evaporated instantly. Despite Edmund's desperate protests of innocence, despite William and Anna's tearful corroboration, the family declared them persona non grata. Mrs. Forrester's disgust was palpable as she watched her husband dispose of the "evidence" and prepared to ship the troublesome trio to whatever accommodation could be found for problem evacuees. Their new billet at 4 Livingston Lane proved to be a descent into squalor that made the Forresters' cruelties seem almost benign. Mrs. Griffith - a harried woman with four small children and a husband fighting in North Africa - had agreed to house the evacuees purely for the government payments. Her cramped cottage reeked of unwashed bodies and coal smoke, while chunks of plaster rained down from water-damaged ceilings. The children found themselves sharing a single blanket on straw pallets in an unheated upstairs room, with no furniture beyond a chamber pot and an apple crate. Mrs. Griffith made clear that they were an inconvenience she could barely tolerate, useful primarily for the money they brought and the manual labor they could provide. Meals became exercises in creative starvation - thin porridge without milk, watery soup stretched to feed too many mouths, constant reminders that food was scarce and evacuee appetites were not a priority. Anna learned to cook out of necessity, only to be berated for using too much of their precious rations. Edmund contracted a lingering cold that Mrs. Griffith treated with indifference verging on hostility. The final insult came when Mrs. Griffith allowed her youngest daughter to tear apart the children's books for toilet paper, destroying not only their personal possessions but a borrowed volume from the village library. When Edmund protested this desecration, Mrs. Griffith's response was swift and brutal - a ringing slap across his face that left a dark welt and sent the message that evacuee children had no rights worth respecting. That Christmas Eve morning, as Edmund held his burning cheek and William fought back tears of rage, the three siblings made the decision that would change everything: they walked out of 4 Livingston Lane and never looked back.

Chapter 4: Refuge in Pages: The Librarian's Christmas Gift

The village library had become their sanctuary over the long months of exile - a warm haven filled with books and presided over by Mrs. Nora Müller, whose German surname had made her an object of suspicion in wartime England. The children had discovered her gentleness gradually, through shared conversations about stories and her quiet kindness when Anna was discovered to have head lice. Mrs. Müller carried burdens of her own. Her husband Martin had disappeared into Germany before the war, ostensibly to visit family but possibly to join the Nazi cause. His silence had left her isolated in the village, viewed with suspicion as the potential wife of an enemy agent. She lived alone in her stone cottage, tending her garden and her small menagerie of farm animals while the community treated her as an unwelcome alien. On Christmas Eve, after their desperate flight from Mrs. Griffith's, the children found themselves huddled in the village church during the evacuee Nativity play. Edmund dangled his cardboard star over the manger with feverish exhaustion, William shepherded imaginary sheep while planning their uncertain future, and Anna fluttered her newspaper wings while tears streamed down her face at the carol's line about "all the dear children." Mrs. Müller appeared at the post-performance reception, took one look at Edmund's bruised face and their collective desperation, and made an offer that seemed too good to be true: "Can we come home with you?" Anna had blurted out, voicing what all three were thinking. The librarian's response came without hesitation - "Of course you can." The walk through the snowy night to Mrs. Müller's cottage felt like a journey from purgatory to paradise. The stone house radiated warmth from its enormous kitchen fireplace, and the librarian immediately set about providing what they had been denied for months - hot chocolate thick enough to coat a spoon, buttered toast that melted on their tongues, and the revolutionary concept of adults who cared whether children were warm and fed and safe. That night, tucked into clean sheets in a proper bed with hot water bottles at their feet, the children listened to Mrs. Müller read "The Night Before Christmas" with a tenderness that none of them had ever experienced. For the first time in their lives, they fell asleep feeling genuinely cared for, though none dared voice the hope that this sanctuary might prove permanent.

Chapter 5: Healing Hearts: Building Trust in a Time of War

The librarian's cottage became a world unto itself during the week between Christmas and New Year. Mrs. Müller fussed over Edmund's lingering cold with clean handkerchiefs and honey-sweetened tea, while Anna and William lost themselves in a jigsaw puzzle by the fire. The children were amazed to discover that adults could actually enjoy their company, that conversations could flow naturally without underlying currents of resentment or calculation. Mrs. Müller's personal tragedy emerged gradually through the winter months. A letter from Switzerland brought the devastating news that her husband Martin had died in the Berlin bombing raids of August 1940. The revelation that he had been a victim rather than a perpetrator of Nazi aggression came too late to restore her reputation in the village, but it lifted the cloud of uncertainty that had shadowed her existence. The children's response to her grief revealed the depth of their growing bond. They insisted on caring for her during her mourning period, feeding her animals, gathering eggs from the Brontë sisters - her aptly named chickens - and even attempting to milk Jane the temperamental goat. Their fumbling efforts at domestic management were less important than their instinctive understanding that families take care of each other during dark times. School remained a trial, particularly for Edmund, whose natural rebelliousness clashed spectacularly with Miss Carr's authoritarian methods. A particularly brutal punishment - five hundred lines writing the definition of "carbuncle" - led to an evening of unexpected intimacy as Mrs. Müller sat with him at the kitchen table, knitting quietly while he completed his task. Her presence during his ordeal spoke louder than words about the sort of mother she might become. The children's true circumstances remained their carefully guarded secret. They continued writing letters to Miss Collins, their former housekeeper, maintaining the fiction that their grandmother remained alive and concerned for their welfare. But the weight of deception grew heavier as their attachment to Mrs. Müller deepened and the possibility of permanent adoption began to seem not just desirable but essential to their happiness. When William's thirteenth birthday passed unmentioned in January, Mrs. Müller's horrified response - "Not important? A boy turning thirteen?" - and her immediate organization of a celebration complete with homemade cake and a bicycle salvaged from her absent husband's belongings, demonstrated a level of maternal instinct that left all three children speechless with longing.

Chapter 6: Seeds of Belonging: Growing Roots Through Victory Gardens

Spring brought both literal and metaphorical growth to the children's world. Edmund conceived an ambitious plan to restore Mrs. Müller's standing in the village through a school victory garden that would provide vegetables for local families while demonstrating the librarian's invaluable expertise in horticulture. The project required courage from both Edmund and Mrs. Müller. Edmund had to approach the dreaded Miss Carr with his proposal, risking further punishment for his audacity. Mrs. Müller had to face the village council, where the formidable Mrs. Norton and her supporters initially dismissed the idea as unsuitable coming from such a questionable source. The garden's success exceeded everyone's expectations. Under Mrs. Müller's guidance, the evacuees transformed the barren ground around the schoolhouse into neat rows of vegetables that promised abundant harvests. Even Miss Carr found herself working alongside the German woman she had once viewed with suspicion, gradually recognizing her fundamental decency and expertise. The children's own growth paralleled that of their garden. William learned to ride his birthday bicycle, wobbling through the cottage garden while his siblings cheered his progress. Anna discovered reserves of maternal instinct as she read stories to Mrs. Griffith's neglected children during a brief visit to their former hellhole. Edmund found his voice as an advocate, defending both the garden and Mrs. Müller against the remaining skeptics in the village. But the project's greatest success lay in Mrs. Müller's gradual reintegration into community life. Neighbors who had shunned her for months began stopping to admire the flourishing garden and ask for gardening advice. Betty Baxter, a retired schoolteacher, actually hugged her after the council vote approving the project. The isolation that had nearly broken her spirit began to lift as the village remembered that she was, fundamentally, one of their own. The children watched this transformation with growing hope and a deepening understanding of what family might actually mean. They had found not just shelter but a true home with someone who genuinely cared about their welfare. The question that remained was whether they could find the courage to reveal their true circumstances and ask Mrs. Müller to make their arrangement permanent.

Chapter 7: Finding Home: Where Children Hang the Moon

The revelation came by accident, as such moments often do. Working in their garden one afternoon, the children overheard Mrs. Müller talking to Miss Carr about how much the three evacuees meant to her. "They're just the most extraordinary children," she said, unaware that her words were being overheard. "I'm quite certain they can do anything they set their minds to... If they wanted to, I'm certain they could hang the moon in the very heavens." The phrase hit William like a physical blow - the exact words he had always claimed their mother used to describe her children. After months of searching for signs and portents, here was the unmistakable confirmation that they had found their true home. But knowing this and acting upon it proved to be different challenges entirely. The weight of their months-long deception suddenly felt crushing. How could they explain that they had been lying about their circumstances from the very beginning? How could they ask someone to adopt three children who had already proven themselves capable of sustained dishonesty? William, as the natural spokesman for the trio, finally found his courage during dinner on a quiet evening in late spring. "We need to talk to you about something," he began, his voice barely steady. The confession poured out in a torrent - their grandmother's death, the solicitor's preposterous plan, their desperate search for a permanent home, and their growing certainty that Mrs. Müller was the answer to prayers they had been afraid to voice. The librarian's response exceeded their wildest hopes. Through tears of joy and amazement, she gathered them into her arms with fierce protectiveness. "Of course I'll have you," she declared, her voice carrying the weight of absolute commitment. "Of course I will." The practical arrangements could wait - conversations with the mysterious Mr. Engersoll, legal adoptions, official paperwork. What mattered in that moment was the simple recognition that they had found what they had been seeking all along: someone who would choose them not out of duty or financial necessity, but out of love. As they sat around the kitchen table that had become the center of their world, surrounded by the detritus of their interrupted dinner, the four of them began to understand that they were no longer refugees from a broken life but the founding members of something entirely new - a family built on choice rather than accident, on love rather than obligation.

Summary

In the end, the preposterous plan worked exactly as the nervous solicitor had predicted, though not through any merit of his strategic thinking. William, Edmund, and Anna found their permanent home not by charming strangers with their good behavior or by hiding their difficult circumstances, but by stumbling into the path of someone who needed them as desperately as they needed her. Mrs. Müller had been as orphaned by the war as they were - cut off from community, isolated by suspicion, mourning a husband who had vanished into the machinery of global conflict. Their mutual rescue was as much about her healing as theirs. The true genius of their story lies not in its happy ending but in its recognition that families are not always born but sometimes made through the simple decision to care for one another. In a world torn apart by war, hatred, and suspicion, four people found each other and chose love over fear, trust over self-protection, hope over despair. They discovered that home is not a place but a condition of being genuinely known and unconditionally accepted. In Mrs. Müller's kitchen, beside her garden, surrounded by her books and her fierce protection, three orphaned children finally learned what it meant to hang someone's moon - and to have someone hang theirs in return.

About Author

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Kate Albus

Albus intertwines personal history with broader historical events, crafting middle-grade novels that delve into themes of resilience and familial bonds. Her fascination with historical realism allows her to create stories where young readers can explore past events through the lens of empathy and connection. This approach is vividly demonstrated in her debut book, "A Place to Hang the Moon", where she revisits the World War II evacuation of London children—a narrative enriched by her own childhood fascination with the period. Her meticulous research ensures that historical accuracy forms the backdrop for her characters' development, offering readers an immersive experience.\n\nThrough her work, Albus seeks to illuminate the resilience and strength found within children and families during tumultuous times. By drawing extensively from historical events, she enriches her narratives with depth and authenticity, allowing readers to engage with history in a way that is both educational and emotionally resonant. Her second novel, "Nothing Else But Miracles", continues this exploration of history, showcasing her commitment to blending detailed research with storytelling that resonates on an emotional level. These novels, while grounded in specific historical contexts, offer universal insights into human nature and the enduring spirit of youth.\n\nFor readers and educators, Albus's books serve as valuable resources for introducing historical events through engaging narratives. Her works not only provide historical insights but also encourage young readers to develop empathy and understanding for past generations. While specific accolades for her work aren't widely documented, the impact of her writing lies in its ability to connect with and inspire a middle-grade audience, fostering a lifelong interest in history and storytelling. Through a thoughtful blend of historical detail and narrative depth, Albus's novels offer a meaningful exploration of the past that remains relevant to contemporary readers.

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