This book takes place during World War 1 in a small town in Louisiana. Patty Bergan is the main character she is an average Jewish girl. She has few friends and tries to live up to what her parents want her to be.

When the government sets up a POW camp for German soldiers a mile from her hometown she thinks its very exciting.
Her parents own a small department store in town and when a few soldiers come into the store to by hats for the prisoners she meets Frederick Anton Reiker, a soldier forced against his will into the German army. But no one but Patty believes him.
Then one night, a few days later she sees someone running near the train tracks, she calls to him and she sees that it is Anton. She tells him that he can stay in her garage that no one ever enters.
Patty starts to steal food for him, her father notices that it is disappearing and immediately blames Ruth, Patty and her sisters Nanny. Patty says that she has been eating it. Then she and Anton become friends.
A couple of FBI agents come to the town to investigate the disappearance of Anton. When they question Patty she tells them what he looks like and that he was very polite.
Before to long Anton tells Patty that he must leave town. So that she remembers him, he gives her his gold ring. She gives him a shirt that she bought for her father for his birthday.
Patty starts to show the ring to people claiming that she got it from a “tramp” that she gave some food to. Her father thinks that the tramp was a child molester and calls in the sheriff. He doesn’t agree with her father and dismisses the case.
Then the FBI agents come back to further question Patty. They also ask her about the tramp, she tells them the same thing she told the sheriff, except she says that he was “very polite” the same thing she said about Anton. They ask her if she gave the tramp anything in return for the ring, she says that she doesn’t.
They show her the shirt she gave Anton; it has a small round hole in it, surrounded by blood. She gives up, and they show her a newspaper article that details Anton’s death.
Because she is so young she is not charged with treason, but with delinquency. She is sentenced to six months of reform school where she is picked on and called “Spy,” “Nazi,” “Jew-Nazi,” and “Natz” for short.