Frankie Parsons is twelve going on eighty -- an apparently sensible boy growing up in New Zealand, he has a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head: Are the smoke alarm batteries flat? Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family, have worms? Will bird flu strike and ruin life as we know it?
Most of the people in Frankie's life seem gloriously untroubled by worry. Only Ma takes his catalogue of persistent anxieties seriously, listening patiently to the questions he brings her at 10 p.m. each night. But when a new girl arrives at school with relentless, unavoidable questions of her own, Frankie's carefully controlled world begins to unravel. Will he be able to face up to the unpalatable, ultimate 10 p.m. Question; why does Ma never leave the house?