Plot

To avoid the heat of a sweltering summer night a 9-year-old Manhattan boy decides to sleep on the fire escape and witnesses a murder, but no one will believe him.

At the age of 9, Tommy Woodry has a reputation for telling tall tales -- the latest one being that his family is moving from Manhattan to a ranch out west. When the landlord interrupts the Woodrys at dinner to show their about-to-be-vacated apartment, the Woodrys tell Tommy enough is enough. Then that hot summer night Tommy decides to sleep on the fire escape -- outside the Kellerson's apartment, since it is a story higher and gets more breeze. Tommy sees the Kellersons kill a man. Tommy's parents and the police won't believe his story. But the Kellersons want to silence him.—Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com>

The Woodrys live in a New York City tenement. Nine-year-old Tommy Woodry has a penchant for telling what he considers are harmless stories of fancy. Most of the people to whom he tells the stories know they are such, but the belief in a few of those stories has led to potential problems. As such, his parents, Ed and Mary Woodry, want him to stop telling lies or else be punished. One evening during a heat wave, Tommy witnesses their upstairs neighbors, Joe and Jean Kellerson, kill a man through their window while sleeping on the fire escape outside. He also overhears them stating that the killing was premeditated. Tommy not only tells his parents but also the police. His exasperated parents believe Tommy is once again crying wolf, but the two people who know that Tommy is telling the truth are the Kellersons, to whom the story gets back. Tommy thus fears for his safety, especially one evening when his parents are not around and he is physically confined to their apartment. Tommy will do anything to protect himself from the Kellersons or to get someone in authority truly to believe the Kellersons are the murderers he says they are, that is if he can escape from his confinement.—Huggo

On a hot summer night, young Tommy Woodry decides to sleep on the fire escape. He climbs up outside a neighbor's window, the Kellersons, where he sees them kill a man with a pair of scissors. The problem is that Tommy has a reputation for telling tall tales so no one believes him now that he's telling the truth. He even sneaks out of the house and goes down to the police station but they don't take him seriously. Tommy is afraid that if the Kellersons find out what he saw, he will be their next victim. The Kellersons do find out - when Tommy's mother makes him apologize - and they have every intention to kill him.—garykmcd

In a working-class neighborhood in New York, the boy Tommy makes up stories to his mother Mary Woodry and father Ed Woodry. One summer night, Tommy sleeps on the fire escape to soften the heat, and he witness the murder of a man through the window by his neighbors Joe Kellerson and his wife Jean Kellerson. Tommy runs back home and tells his parents what he saw, but they do not believe him. He flees to go to the precinct and Detective Ross brings him back home, but Mary tells to the detective that Tommy is a liar. Further, on the next morning, she goes with Tommy to the Kellerson's apartment trying to force Tommy to apologize for them, but the boy refuses. Now the criminals are warned that Tommy knows something about that night.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil