Summary:

High-school freshman Barry Wilson enrolls in Bay Area Social Concerns and must visit 83-year-old Miss Pierce at Cherry Garden Convalescent Hospital. Barry, short, shy, and miserable at his first visit, thinks of pictures of mummies he's seen in National Geographic; Miss Pierce thinks he's somebody named Willie.

But as Miss Pierce talks about her brother Willie and her childhood as a cripple, Barry gets interested. The story isn't a happy one, and Barry, himself adopted, identifies with Willie's abandoned child and becomes angry with the world until he comes to realize how important he is to his parents.

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