Toby and his friend Harry visit a funfair called Pavilion Pier in Cole Bay, in England. The boys approach an employee named Michelle, who was going to move to London but decided to stay working full-time. Then they walk outside the Crow’s Nest playhouse and run into Dudley Salterton, an actor who was a popular ventriloquist during the war but is now miserable and sickly.   As Toby and Harry continue their walk through the fair, they despise how ludicrous their town and its inhabitants are. As they ride on the ghost train, they decide to leave Cole Bay once and for all. Harry hurries to get his belongings, and Toby heads to the Paradise Penny arcade to meet Harry there. He sees the Jolly Jack Tar doll inside, which distortedly and creepily sings “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” when one inserts a coin. Toby feels like it eyes him as if it knows what he’s up to. Someone dressed as the character Widow Twankey visits the arcade during her break. She sees Toby trying to cheat the machines with a fake plastic coin, and warns him about it while groping him. Harry soon arrives and brings a duffel bag with a gun and his dad's rat poison, acquired when he was in the military.   Toby slips the rat poison into the tea of Winfrey, the arcade employee. After, Michelle enters the arcade and tells Toby she knows they are leaving. She wants them to take her with them and reveals she is pregnant. Toby says he can't, and decides he will not even take Harry anymore. Winfrey begins to vomit violently, and Toby asks him where the money is when he finds the arcade’s bank bag empty. Winfrey reveals the Widow actress was going to deposit the money. Toby and Harry run out to find her, leaving Michelle and a dying Winfrey at the arcade. Outside, Toby tells Harry he can’t take him because he’s too young. Toby then heads to the theatre and confronts Widow there, who reveals herself as a male drag artist. When he pulls Toby close and begins to undress, Toby shoots him in the testicles. He then empties his gun clip on Widow, grabs the money bag from the dressing room, and runs out.   Outside, it is raining heavily. Toby knows the town will do anything to keep him from escaping. As he runs to catch the train leaving for London in seven minutes, he sees the Jolly Jack Tar doll run towards him, its song now warped with the rain. The doll slams into Toby and begins to choke him as it smiles. As it clings tight to Toby, biting him, Toby looks at his mundane town, with its run-down arcade, desolate beach, and ticket booths, one last time.