The book starts out rather casually with the main character, Margaret Ann, complaining about her lack of personal space. The reader finds out early that she's forced, due to a lack of room, to sleep with her grandmother, who claims that she doesn't, but snores. She has four siblings, Elizabeth and Johnny, the elders, and the younger twins, Paige and Polly, who she can't tell apart. Elizabeth, at the time, is just getting ready to leave home for college, and Margaret Ann wastes no time in claiming her room, and moving in once Elizabeth leaves, though she misses her sister. However, eventually her problems grow larger than her sister's absence. England is fighting a war, and her aunt and cousin- who she's never met before- come to stay with them while her uncle fights. She grow to seriously dislike Courtney, who at first appears rather snobbish, constantly complains about small injuries, and ends up with everything Margaret Ann thinks she should have for herself. Eventually, though, as Margaret's bother goes to join the Navy, and her uncle becomes 'missing in action', Margaret grows to understand Courtney's pain, and over a period of thim, they become wonderful friends.