The narration is conducted on behalf of the main character, the boy Toli.

The boy Tolya Nashchokov lived in Simferopol with his mother Katya. Toli's mother was the youngest in his class, the boy loved and cherished her. He knew his father only from photographs - he died at the front very young. Today is Tolya's holiday - Uncle Nikolai came to visit, who studied with the boy’s father, and during the war he flew with him on heavy bombers.

Katya forbade her son to skip classes, so Tolya came home after the guest arrived. Even from the hallway he heard a conversation between his mother and Uncle Nikolai. He persuaded Katya to move to him in Moscow, in a new, newly allocated apartment. Tolya was delighted: he really wanted to live with Uncle Nikolai and was proud that he flies on a passenger airliner IL-18.

Katya was in no hurry to agree - at first she wanted to ask her son. Tolya was about to say that he agreed, but did not have time - in the room they were talking about his father. Uncle Nikolai did not understand why he had sunk into Katya so much, because they had only known each other for six months. But for Katy, these six months fit her whole life.

They are remembered forever. He was kind, strong and very honest.

Angry, Uncle Nikolai declared that Lieutenant Nashchokov did not die, but surrendered without resistance. He learned about this from recently found fascist documents.

Katya was angry and said that Uncle Nikolai should no longer come to them. Tolya was also offended by his father. He wanted to drive the guest out, but was afraid to burst into tears and went unnoticed out of the apartment.

When Tolya returned home, Uncle Nikolai was gone. Mom cried and said that they were leaving for Gurzuf, where her father, Tolin grandfather, had been waiting for them for a long time.

Two weeks later, Katya began to pack on the road. Toli’s best friend, Leshka, brought a letter from Uncle Nikolai, which he intercepted at the postman. At the sight of the letter, the boy almost cried and told Lyosha about everything. He advised a friend to give a damn about Uncle Nikolai - there was no. But Tolya liked Uncle Nikolai so much! ... In the evening, Katya put an unopened letter in an envelope and sent it back to Moscow.

Having reached Alushta by bus, Katya and her son transferred to the ship. In the Gurzuf bay, their grandfather, who had once served as a cook on a ship, was now waiting for them, and now works as a cook in a cheburechny. It turned out that the captain of the ship, Kostya, was a longtime acquaintance of his grandfather.

Grandfather lived in a private house, and Tolya was put to sleep in the courtyard under a flowering peach tree. In the morning, a neighbor, Maria Semyonovna Volokhina, came to meet them. Seeing that Katya is a beauty, a neighbor purred that “there are gentle men in the resorts”, and a beautiful woman will not disappear here. Katya did not like these hints.

After breakfast, mother and son wandered for a long time on the hot Gurzuf.

I was silent, and my mother was silent. It seemed to me that my mother wants to torture herself and me.

Tolya "thought that mom looked like a wounded bird."

On the same day, my grandfather arranged for Katya to work in a sanatorium as a nurse. He forced his daughter to admit that she came here because of a quarrel with Nikolai. Grandfather admitted that Toli's father really survived and remained in a foreign country.

The boy was terribly upset that his grandfather considers his father a traitor. He began to argue, and then ran out into the street and ran away. Tolya decided that his grandfather hates him because of his resemblance to his father, and to his mother this resemblance does not allow him to forget about her husband. He went to the marina, intending to leave and settle with a friend Lyosha.

On the pier, the boy met the familiar captain Kostya and asked to be taken free of charge to Alushta. The captain took Tolya aboard and quickly found out, because of which he went on the run. Kostya said that his grandfather killed three sons in the war - they defended the Crimea, fought along with the captain. Then he reminded Tole of his mother and persuaded him to return. An alarming grandfather was already waiting for the boy at the Gurzuf pier.

Gradually, Tolya got used to the new city. He met a neighbor Volokhin, who worked as a physical instructor in a sanatorium, and he began to let the boy into the territory to play tennis with vacationers.

Once, Maria Semyonovna came to Katya again and offered to earn extra money. She rented rooms to vacationers. There were still places in her house, but so many people will not be registered in the police. The enterprising Volokhina suggested that Katya prescribe extra vacationers on her square, and settle with a neighbor, and promised to pay for it. Katya refused “free money”, which angered Maria Semyonovna.

In retaliation, the Volokhins were spread throughout the district that Katya's husband was a traitor who voluntarily surrendered to the Nazis, and they stopped letting Tolya into the territory of the sanatorium. Only the captain Kostya interceded for the Nashchokovs - somehow he almost beat the nasty neighbor.

Katya has already begun to regret that she came to Gurzuf when Tolya received a letter from Lyosha. An unopened letter from Czechoslovakia was found in the envelope - several yellowed pages and a note from the old Czech. During the war, he lost his address and for several years looked for Katya to give her the last letter from her husband.

The pilot Karp Nashchokov was shot down over Czechoslovakia, he spent ten days in the Gestapo, and then ended up in a concentration camp. The Czech comrades helped Karp to escape and sent him to the partisan detachment. Soon, the partisans blew up a railway bridge over which the Germans "transported oil from Romania to Germany."

The next day, the Nazis came to a village under the protection of partisans and arrested all the children. If after three days the partisans do not give out the man who blew up the bridge, the children will be shot. If it becomes known that the locals did it, the children will still be shot, so Karp took all the blame. This letter, Lieutenant Nashchokov wrote before the execution and asked the old Czech man to hand it over to his beloved wife.

When you receive this letter, then tell everyone how I died. The main thing is to find my comrades in the regiment, let them remember me.

Grandfather read the letter all night, blowing his nose, and then he took it and went to "take a walk." After that, they stopped gossiping about Katya. Tolya decided to write a letter to his father, and send it to Lyosha - a friend can, he will understand.

The next day, Tolya was swimming in the warm sea, thinking about Uncle Costa, and finally decided to become a sea pilot. Returning from the beach, the boy saw a smart mother - she went to the Yalta military registration and enlistment office to look for dad's friends. On the pier Katya was waiting for Kostya.

On the embankment Tolya met a detachment of Artek.0 they went in formation, and then at the counselor's command they shouted: “Good morning to everyone, everyone!” After this meeting, Tolya's mood became "calm and a little sad, but good."