Margaret and her best friend Elizabeth both have brothers fighting the war against Hitler and, like everyone else they know, they are filled with feelings of patriotism. But the girls are also involved in their own personal war at home. Gordy Smith, the worst bully in sixth grade, teases and torments them, and Margaret is scared to death of him. But when Gordy and his pals Toad and Doug grow bolder than ever, Margaret and Elizabeth come up with a daring plan to get even. That's when the girls discover a shocking secret about Gordy that turns their lives upside-down and draws them into a startling confrontation with family, friends...and their own strongly held ideas.

When Gordy Smith and his down-and-out family go to live with his rich grandmother, Gordy brings with him all the hostilities of an abused child whose drunken father has beaten him regularly. His no-nonsense grandmother and his friendship with a boy who uses a wheelchair change his perspective and life. The author, Mary Downing Hahn is a former children''s librarian.

Gordy couldn't be more unhappy about moving back to his hometown of College Hill, where everybody knows his family's troubled history. In North Carolina, Gordy's life had finally seemed to be on the right track. But in College Hill, Gordy and his sister, June, move into a cramped apartment with their brother Stu and his new family. The principal at Gordy's school immediately has it in for him, his old pals encourage him to cause trouble, and his one-time nemesis, Elizabeth, hates him more than ever. It seems to Gordy as though the whole world is against him. Will he slip back into his old trouble-making ways for good, or will he be able to keep growing into the successful person he was striving to become?