Peer pressure is a major theme found in Wringer. Like all young people, Palmer wants to belong, but he makes a poor choice about the group in which he seeks membership. An only child, Palmer is a compassionate, intelligent, thinking young person with a strong moral compass. He does well in school, is obedient to the authority of his parents, enjoys a close companionship with his father, and abhors cruelty to others and animals. It is his strong morality that produces the conflict in which Palmer finds himself. He is filled with dread about being a wringer. He doesn't want to be a wringer, but he does want to belong.

Arthur Dodds, better known as Beans, is all the things Palmer is not. With teeth every color of the rainbow because he says he never brushes them, Beans gets his nickname because he loves baked beans...