Ellie rides a streetcar back home from school one day and gets off a block early so that she can pass by the house of a boy she is interested in, Roy. As she does, she gets nervous at the fact that he might come out of his house, but he doesn’t. She goes to the apartment she is living in with her father, her six-year-old sister, Gin, and sister’s governess, Miss Purdy, as her father is in the middle of his divorce with Ellie’s mother. No one is home and Ellie eats a candy bar alone until Miss Purdy comes back and seems distressed. She tells Ellie that she had taken Gin to see Gin and Ellie’s mother who unexpectedly came into town. However their mother, when Miss Purdy wasn’t looking, took Gin and Miss Purdy couldn’t find them. Miss Purdy says she hopes that their mother comes back to the apartment with Gin.  They wait patiently until Ellie’s father comes home and Miss Purdy shares what happened. He is furious and says that their mother must have kidnapped Gin. Ellie suggests calling all of her mother’s friends to see if they are staying with them and so her father starts making the calls, but no one has seen her. Ellie then suggests that the friends may be lying and so they should go to the friends’ houses to check. Her father agrees and the two go by streetcar to the houses. On the streetcar Ellie runs into Roy and he says hi to her. Suddenly she bursts into tears and doesn’t say anything more to him, feeling utterly embarrassed. They go to four different people’s houses and none of them show any signs of having Ellie’s mother and Gin. They end up inside one person’s house and Ellie inspects the bedrooms to see if they’re hiding in there, but can’t find them. Eventually, Ellie’s father sees how tired Ellie is and they get a cab back to their apartment. They hope that maybe Gin has returned in the time that they were gone, but she hasn’t. That night Ellie offers to sleep in Gin’s bed which is in her father’s bedroom and she comforts her father as he tries to sleep. In the morning they wake to a telegram that is from Ellie’s mother’s mother who says that Gin and her mother have arrived at the grandmother’s house. Ellie’s father calls the grandmother and talks to her and Ellie’s mother and figures out that she wants money. He books a train ticket there and Ellie helps him pack. After he leaves Ellie goes roller skating near Roy’s house and sees him. She suddenly realizes that after the night before that she can’t talk to him again and that from now on she won’t get off the streetcar a block early. She feels like everything has changed.