Andy Rusch, an energetic and sensitive seventh-grader, plays Little League baseball with his friends Eechee Ries, Bo Hemmendinger, and Bitsy Scharz.

Andy is proud of his father's hardware store and looks forward to the day when the store will be his. His father, Andy Rusch, Sr., is president of the Serenity Rotary Club. A forceful and ambitious man, he looks at things "sensibly" and is unimpressed with superstition. Mr. Rusch dreams of the day when his son will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and become one of the first persons to walk on the moon.

Andy's best friend, an eccentric European immigrant named Onion John, cannot speak English even though he has lived in Serenity for twenty-five years; only Andy understands what Onion John says. An excellent gardener and handyman, Onion John is also superstitious and odd: he eats raw onions for breakfast...