Gordy Smith

In 1944, when her brother is overseas fighting in World War II, eleven-year-old Margaret changes her mind about the school bully, Gordy, after she discovers he is hiding his own brother, a deserter.

In this companion story to the award-winning "Stepping on the Cracks," tough-talking Gordy Smith comes to grips with the fear that he'll turn out no better than his abusive father.

Gordy couldn't be more unhappy about moving back to his hometown of College Hill, where everybody knows his family's troubled history. In North Carolina, Gordy's life had finally seemed to be on the right track. But in College Hill, Gordy and his sister, June, move into a cramped apartment with their brother Stu and his new family. The principal at Gordy's school immediately has it in for him, his old pals encourage him to cause trouble, and his one-time nemesis, Elizabeth, hates him more than ever. It seems to Gordy as though the whole world is against him. Will he slip back into his old trouble-making ways for good, or will he be able to keep growing into the successful person he was striving to become?