they are sojourning there, Woodrow ponders the line from his mama's poem that reads, "you must ask for what you really want." Woodrow decides that, besides longing for his mama to come back, what he really desires is for his eyes to be straight. What Gypsy wants is to cut her hair short; she feels invisible under her thick tresses, and thinks that if they were gone, people might see what she is really like underneath.

Woodrow describes a mysterious spot in the isolated woods behind the Prater home where "the air is thick and it vibrates." He thinks that this is the "doorsill where two worlds touch" from his mama's poem and concludes that she must have passed through it. Just then, Blind Benny, a local character who wanders the streets at night, passes by, singing a ballad about a mother who tenderly rocks her baby to sleep and then abandons him. As Woodrow and Gypsy listen to the soft strains of the mournful song, Woodrow recalls that his mother used to tell him that she felt as if she was in a straightjacket, being squeezed to death by the circumstances of her life. He concludes that, on the morning that she disappeared, Belle asked "for what [she] really want[ed]"—to get out of her life—and got it.

At school, Woodrow's new sixth-grade classmates all know he is "Belle Prater's boy," and are anxious to meet him, but he immediately sets everyone straight in this regard by declaring, "I don't know what happened to her, and I don't want to talk about it!" Woodrow is kind by nature, and quickly wins the respect of fellow students and teachers alike with his pleasant personality and vivid imagination. Despite his insistence that he does not want to talk about his mother, Gypsy knows that Belle's absence gnaws at him constantly. 

Gypsy contracts a severe case of the measles, and while she is confined to her room, Woodrow comes to her window to visit, with Blind Benny in tow. Blind Benny sings to her, and tells her that he and her father Amos "wuz boys together back there in Cold Valley, Kentucky. Later, Porter comes in and solicitously sets up a fan and a radio for his stepdaughter, but Gypsy is irritated by his presence. She asks her mother why she married the man, crying petulantly, "He's not my daddy...I hate him."

When Gypsy is well again, she and Woodrow have a wienie roast with some of their friends from school. Woodrow entertains everyone with stories, but one boy, Buzz Osborne, becomes jealous of the attention he is getting, and gibes cruelly about his crossed eyes. The next day, Gypsy asks Grandpa why "the way a person looks is so important" to others, and the old man sagely observes, "It shouldn't make no difference a'tall...but it does to most folks." He adds that, in reality, appearances do not define people; "it's only what's in the heart that counts." When Gypsy complains that people seem to notice Woodrow's crossed eyes and overlook his goodness, Grandpa says that Woodrow's mother Belle suffered in the same way: she was sensitive and talented, but she only wanted to be pretty like Love. Grandpa remembers that Belle had a gift for piano playing, and notes that Gypsy is a lot like her aunt in this respect. Gypsy thinks that it is nice to be admired for attributes other than just being good-looking, but acknowledges with uncommon perception that this is "an easy thing for a pretty girl to say."

Woodrow continues to ruminate about his mother and the poem she loved. He insists that she has crossed "that place where two different things come together" into "a whole 'nother world," but at the same time, he checks the classified ads in the Sunday paper, hoping to receive a message from her. Gypsy understands that Woodrow does not really believe his farfetched stories. Deep down, he knows his mother is somewhere in this world, and longs for her to contact him in a familiar way.

Gypsy and Woodrow help at Mama's annual garden party, "the social event of the season." Some of the attendees are insufferably pompous, and Woodrow cuts the most obnoxious woman there down to size by making her believe that the punch is spiked. The resulting hijinks are so ludicrous that Woodrow does not even get in trouble; Gypsy meanwhile feels resentful because her cousin always seems to be able perform his shenanigans with impunity, while she herself can never get away with anything. Things get worse between the two children when Woodrow inopportunely comments that attractive people like Gypsy "can do anything they want to and get away with it just because they are pretty." 

Later, at home, Gypsy encounters Porter, who, despite her obvious animosity towards him, sensitively listens while she vents her frustrations. Gypsy tells Porter that she wants to be "seen" for something other than her good looks, and Porter notes that she is "wonderfully imaginative and creative" like her Aunt Belle. He then adds that if she, Gypsy, would just be herself, no one would be able to outshine her. Porter observes that Belle had never learned to do that, and that her anger at the world (because she was not her sister, Love) essentially caused her to "vanish" long before she physically disappeared. Porter believes that Belle is somewhere out in the world now, trying to find herself again.

Things are never quite the same between Gypsy and Woodrow after their quarrel. When school begins again in September, both children find themselves in the same seventh grade class. When their teacher, Mr. Collins, a newcomer in town, asks the students to introduce themselves, Woodrow is the first volunteer. While he is talking, Buzz Osborne rudely announces that Woodrow is "Belle Prater's boy," and challenges him to explain his mother's disappearance. Despite the painful nature of the subject, Woodrow gamely says that his mother has discovered the secret of invisibility, but in the end, he concludes that she is probably in New York City, where there is a doctor "who operates on crossed eyes and makes them straight." Poignantly, he asserts that she will undoubtedly send for him soon.

When it is Gypsy's turn to give her presentation, she tells the class that she plays the piano and tells good jokes, and that she lives with her mother and stepfather, Porter Dotson. Mr. Collins comments that he knows Porter, and that he is a "fine man," but Gypsy retorts that he is not as fine as her real father, Amos Leemaster. She explains that Amos, who had been a volunteer firefighter, had died saving a baby from a burning house, but Buzz Osborne calls out that she is lying. Buzz insinuates that Amos Leemaster, who loved beauty and was married to "the prettiest woman in the hills," had been so scarred in the fire that he could not stand to look at himself, and committed suicide by shooting "his own self in the face."

Woodrow leaps up and "beat[s] the tar out of Buzz Osborne," but Gypsy is not there to see it. Stunned, she slips out of the classroom and makes her way home, as the memories which have been the source of all her nightmares come flooding back into her consciousness. Amos Leemaster's face had been horribly disfigured in the fire, but this had made no difference to the five-year-old daughter who adored him. On the last day of his life, Mama had sent Gypsy to call her daddy to dinner. The door to his room had been locked, so the child had run out to the porch to look into the bedroom window. There, on the floor by the bed, she had seen her daddy's gory body lying face up in a puddle of blood.

As the vision of her father's mangled face becomes clear again in her mind, Gypsy, overcome by horror, and anger at Amos for abandoning her in death, takes a pair of scissors and hacks off her golden hair. Afterwards, as she lies on her bed without remorse, Porter comes in and calmly but sympathetically surveys the scene of wreckage. Gypsy numbly tells her stepfather that she does not want to be Amos Leemaster's "Beauty" anymore, and that she will be "ugly and evil" instead. Porter gently replies that she is not ugly and evil, only wounded, and encourages her to cry out her grief. Gypsy screams at Porter to go away, and respectfully, he leaves the room. He stays close by, however, while she cries hot, angry tears of sadness and loss.

Mama is devastated to see what Gypsy has done to her hair, but Porter has prepared her ahead of time, and she does not fuss when she comes into her daughter's room. Gypsy asks about her daddy's death, and Mama explains that Amos had indeed been unable to accept his disfigurement as a result of the fire, and had been in "a deep depression" when he killed himself. Gypsy tells her mother that she cut her hair out of anger, but also because she felt invisible beneath it. She asks why it had mattered so much to her father how people looked, and Mama admits that appearance had been too important to Amos Leemaster. Ultimately, that was why the loss of his own good looks had been such a crushing blow.

Porter arranges for Gypsy to have her hair straightened out at Akers's Barbershop after hours, when no one will be around to see her. The next day, she walks to school with Woodrow, who apologizes that she had to hear the truth about her father's death in such a cruel way from Buzz Osborne. Woodrow himself had not know exactly how Amos Leemaster died and he confesses that he had been jealous of Gypsy because she seemed to have things so easy. He had never imagined how much hurt she carried within her, beneath the lovely veneer of her seemingly perfect life.

Gypsy is apprehensive about how her classmates will react to her new, short haircut, but boldly chooses to present herself in an optimistic, positive light, calling her new "do" the "Dixie Pixie...the latest thing out of New York City." Her ruse works, and the girls especially are captivated; it will not be long before several of them will be sporting the same new look. Gypsy's ability to take charge and set the tone for her own acceptance evinces a newfound sense of self-assurance. She is gratified to finally realize that she is anything but invisible.

That night, Woodrow and Gypsy sneak out to spend time with Blind Benny, as he goes through the neighborhood on his "rounds." Benny tells the children that he was born blind, and was orphaned at an early age. He had been forced to support himself by serving as a sin-eater. According to an "old-timey backwoods tradition," when a person dies, his sins are absorbed by the food at his wake. This food is then eaten by the sin-eater, who takes the deceased's transgressions into himself. Benny had lived a lonely existence as a pariah until Amos Leemaster had befriended him, freed him from his odious station, and brought him to Coal Station, Virginia to start his life anew. 

The children follow Benny as he scavenges for useful items discarded around town and Gypsy remembers something she learned in Sunday school. Her teacher said that Jesus might come to them in disguise—dressed in rags, or old, or crippled. It is important, therefore, to treat everyone kindly, no matter what their outer appearance might be, because of the beauty and goodness that lies within them.

Woodrow writes an essay about Blind Benny for English class. He says that the blind man is the only person he knows who perceives with perfect clarity because he sees beyond appearances. It is Granny's birthday, and at her celebration dinner, Porter makes two surprise announcements: Gypsy will have a formal piano recital to showcase her musical talents, and Woodrow will be going to Baltimore to see a specialist who may be able to fix his eyes. In October, on the one-year anniversary of Belle Prater's disappearance, Woodrow and Gypsy sit in the tree house to watch the sun rise. Woodrow tells Gypsy that, despite all his elaborate theories about fanciful places where two worlds touch, and the promise that if a person would just ask for what he wanted, that wish would be granted, he knows what the truth is. Belle Prater has gone away and left her son Woodrow on purpose, just like Amos Leemaster abandoned Gypsy. With uncommon insightfulness, the children understand that their wayward parents did love them, but "their pain was bigger than their love...[and] you [have] to forgive them for that."