During the Great Depression, sisters Jenny and Berit are playing outside one night, long past when their mother normally calls them home. At first, they feel a great sense of freedom, but soon, the freedom is stifling. They walk home. On their way, Jenny finds a stray kitten and picks her up to take her home. When they arrive at the house, Berit thinks maybe her mother did call them and they did not hear, and she braces herself to be in trouble. When they walk in, their parents are screaming at each other, fighting over selling the house. The father insists that they have to sell the house to feed the two girls and their baby Buddy, but the mother is too attached. She was in love with their home from the moment they arrived; though the father used to repair each house they lived in and resell it, he fixed up their current home, and they stayed. When their father sees the kitten in Jenny's arms, he begins yelling at her and running towards her, telling her to get rid of it. The mother jumps in front of the girls to protect them. The argument is over for the night, and the father has one— Mr. Johnson, a real estate agent, begins to visit the house. As the showings continue, Jenny secretly feeds the kitten, bringing her sips of her glass of milk and fragments of her school lunches. She hides the secret well. One day, a Mrs. Faulk comes to see the house, and the mother does her best to graciously host. Mrs. Faulk buys the house for way less than it is worth, and the family begins packing up to move out to a small apartment, which the father insists is temporary. On the day of the move, everyone takes part, except for Jenny, who insists to Berit that she is not coming because she cannot leave the cat. When the father finds out that Jenny will not come, he goes to look for her. When he sees her with the kitten and she refuses to come, he rips the cat from Jenny's hands and snaps its neck. Months later, after they have settled into their new home, Jenny and Berit are walking home when Jenny sees a cat. She runs away crying. When her parents ask Berit what is wrong with Jenny, she explains that the girl saw a cat. The father gets up from the table and runs outside the house into the dark. He sobs.