The central character, Charlie Feehan, is a gutsy young fellow who finds himself growing up just a little too fast when his father dies. ‘When the undertakers came to wheel my father's lifeless body out to the hearse, it was as if they took my childhood with them’ (p.28). His father had been ‘a talker, a chewer of ears. Whenever there was company around he was at his best’ (p.38) and Charlie has inherited a fair amount of his father's ability, even if his imagination and his tongue can outrun his ability, as he finds out when he plays football with Nostrils (p.41) or brags of his boxing training (p.88). The art of ‘finkin and footwork’ (p.83) is what he will need to carry him through these difficult times. It is a challenge just to find enough food to put on the table and to keep the house warm, and so Charlie helps out by rabbiting in Yarra Park and collecting firewood scraps from the Fitzroy wood yard. At night he runs to keep warm. He ‘took to the streets like a drunk takes to the bottle’ (p.3). He has very little interest in school, so when he gets the opportunity to try out for a job with Squizzy Taylor he puts his running skill to good use. This race shows his determination, a quality that Squizzy was quick to recognize and support, but there is a fair amount of naivety that goes with it that is a risk for Charlie. Family always comes first for Charlie, and the reader admires the way he supports his mother and young brother, even if it means lying to them about working for Squizzy. Charlie has to grow up fast when he sees how Peacock takes advantage of his mother. ‘That night (he) turned sixteen years old’ (p.68). Initially, he is ashamed when he first sees them together, but he soon leaps to her defense when Peacock attacks her. This brings him closer to Squizzy for a while, who perhaps he sees as something of a father figure. For a while he becomes distant from his mother during the period of her illness, as he finds it difficult to negotiate her neurotic behaviour. Things don't stay like this for long, as Charlie goes about the business of growing up and closing the gap between imagination and reality.