Nine year old Lucy Meredith Carter is her gentle father's darling, but she has a long list of bad habits. Rattling around town with her pet chook Esmeralda in her bike basket. Dropping in at the local police station to investigate a fire at an old vagrant's bush camp. Brawling in Sunday School. Interviewing the neighbours. Visiting her beloved aunt, Fliss, in the convalescent home at all hours of the day and night. Stealing mail from the convalescent home's office hoping to find the meaning of one strange word spoken by her aunt after years of silence. Rummaging around in her grandmother's upstairs room where there are things NOT for her eyes, searching for lost stories. Retelling dreams of her dead mother, Sylvia, asking why she went away so often, and where she went. Banging on about a war everyone is trying to forget. And worst of all, writing down everything she sees and hears in a tatty old notebook she calls her Book of Known Facts. One day Lucy will stumble on one secret too many...