One sunny Saturday in 1889, Lizzie helps her grandmother scrub, boil, rinse, and hang loads of laundry, although she would rather be having a tea party with her best friend, Lucy, and their dolls, Amelia Cordelia and Belinda Lavinia.

Ducky wants to play laundry day and wash Lambkin's blanket. But an unexpected event occurs when the blanket is washed.

In 1930s Liverpool, England, Bronwen and Dylan live with their widowed mother, who works long hours doing other people's washing, and even though she sometimes must leave the children alone in the house, she cautions them not to speak to the O'Rileys next door, who go to a different church.