‘The child was bright, the voice on the phone had said; and quite normal…’ Why had they said that? They were holding something back. He had felt it from the very first. Was she a cripple, he had asked? No, the voice had said, she wasn’t a cripple. It had something that sounded like a handicap, then it had ceased abruptly. This was the gist of the telephone conversation in which Joe Dodd agreed to take in a granddaughter he had never seen – just for the school holidays.

          Nine-year-old Bella was blind and had had a hard life alone with a drunken father whom her grandfather had eventually refused to treat as his son. Now she was coming to her grandfather almost without warning – and he hated women – all women. She had to learn about her new surroundings and about her grandfather. She also had to get to know John Thompson, an older boy who had been asked to ‘help’ her. Bella did not want to be helped; she wanted to be accepted as herself, clever, forthright, brave and loving – a person, not an encumbrance.

          In all her trials the thing that most sustained her was the memory of her friend, Mrs. Golightly, and the pungent wit for which that lady was renowned. Soon Bella was to need every scrap of help those memories could give, for out of the blue came real danger for her, for John and for a most important stranger.