"You aren't really old enough to be frightened," said Derek's father, and it was true. The German planes that flew over daily on their way to bomb London fascinated Derek and his friends, Peter and Geoff, and they always cheered the RAF planes that went to intercept them, but even when a near miss closed their school for a few days, their interest in the bomb crater was detached and scientific. Far more engrossing was the camp they were building at the bottom of an old ditch dug for a housing project that had never been finished. It was to be their secret meeting place, and they would keep their most treasured possessions there.
Gradually, however, things changed. As the night raids grew more severe, Derek began to worry about the camp, and he became increasingly aware of his parents' fear. Yet it was not bombs that destroyed the camp in the end, but a tough gang from the next street. Enlisting the aid of an older neighbor, Derek and Peter and Geoff engaged in a furious battle of vengeance with the gang. Then, for the first time, they saw violent grown-up hatred, and then, too, they began to know the meaning of fear.
Susan Cooper, author of the popular Over Sea, Under Stone, brings the sensitivity and insight of a highly gifted writer to this story of a boy's gradual awakening to an awareness of the adult world. It is a suspenseful, moving, and memorable book.
