Early in the play we are informed that Suzy is a lonely child, because most children at her school are rather rich and their parents do not wish for them to play with children as poor as Suzy, and her mother spends all day working at a biscuit shop, so she has no time to spare with Suzy. Instead, she saves up money for a special present, and one day gives Suzy a puppy, which Suzy names Neville. Neville likes eating, and soon grows far too big to live in the small cottage with Suzy and her mother, so he is told to sleep on the porch. While here it is revealed that Suzy's mother has a problem with pronouncing words, despite being quite clever really (e.g. she says "Eiderdeiderdown" instead of Eiderdown). It is also revealed that Suzy last saw her father at the Great International Balloon Race, where he just went up, and up, and up, and never came down again, without Suzy ever getting the chance to tell him how much she loved him.