- It seems Mr. O'Neill, Frank's teacher, likes to torture his hungry students with his apple peel and uses the peel as a way to get the boys to pay attention in class.
- On this particular day, Fintan Slattery wins the apple peel but decides to give it to his friends, Frank, Paddy, and Question Quigley.
- Fintan invites Paddy and Frank over for lunch.
- Several days later, Fintan invites them over again, except this time, he tells them his mom isn't around.
- Fintan's mom has left him a sandwich and milk, which Fintan eats all by himself while poor Frank and Paddy look on.
- By the time the boys run to school, lunch is over and Frank and Paddy are starving.
- Paddy and Frank decide to cut class and run away into the fields where they can eat apples from the orchard and drink milk straight from the cows in the meadows. Yeah, you read that right.
- As they're making their way back into town, they run into a schoolmate who tells Frank that his parents know that he's cutting class and they're out looking for him.
- Frank decides it's best to go back to Paddy's house. Paddy's family's even poorer than Frank's, and to make matters worse, Paddy's sick dad spends his days laying in bed spitting blood into a bucket from his consumption.
- It turns out that Paddy's dad, Mr. Clohessy, and Frank's mom go way back. Mr. Clohessy tells them all about how great a dancer Angela was.
- Eventually, Frank falls asleep and wakes up the following morning when Mrs. Clohessy goes around waking up everyone.
- As Frank's trying to figure out whether he should go back to school or cut class again, there's a knock at the door. It's Angela with baby Michael in her arms.
- Mr. Clohessy recognizes Angela's voice and asks her to come in. She has trouble recognizing him because of his sickness.
- Before she goes, Mr. Clohessy asks Angela if she'd sing a song for old times' sake. She begins singing, but after a while becomes short of breath and has to ask Frank to help her finish the song.
- As soon as Angela's out the door, she starts crying about the Clohessys' situation and the memories of her past.