Over the course of the novel, Maggie grows to accept herself as an individual. She learns to use her own strengths to make a place for herself in the world and get herself heard by others. At the beginning, fear constrains Maggie’s world. She struggles because she feels she is different from the other children around her and that she does not fit into her London environment. She is terrified to speak in public because her stutter makes her the object of ridicule. She finds it impossible to make friends at school, and she cannot even count on her own father to support her at home. This lack of social support makes Maggie afraid and self-conscious, and she prefers to hide away inside a small cupboard in her room where she cares for little animals.

However, one of Maggie’s core strengths is her capacity for empathy and compassion. It is through this strength that she is finally able to reach out to broaden her own world and demand that others hear her. She tries hard to reach out to her father and show him love, despite his sternness and lack of compassion for her. Even when she feels excluded by the world, she takes comfort among the small menagerie of animals in her cupboard—she loves them and nurses them back to health.