Twelve-year-old Francis is the son of a widowed mother, very poor, who is struggling to raise her family in Mayaro, a Trinidadian village. The boy gets the chance to to for a year to San Fernando to work as servant-companion to old Mrs. Chandles who lives with her grand and frightening son. His mother considers it a splendid opportunity for him, but he is scared: he has never seen a town, or a house with pictures on the walls, and never been away from the warmth of his family.