The novel is narrated by Matilda, its main character. The story took place in Papua New Guinea, in about 1989, when there was a Civil War there.
Matilda lived in the province of Bougainville. She lived with her mother, Dolores, a fanatical Christian, and as for her father, he went away to Australia to work there, and Matilda hadn’t seen him since her early childhood. When the story took place, Matilda was 13 years old.
There was only one white man in their island – Mr Watts. But people called him Pop Eye. His wife was a woman from their island, Grace. They didn’t have friends among the natives, Matilda didn’t know why. People considered them to be rather stupid and strange couple. Every day they walked along the main street of the island: she stood on the trolley, which he pulled.
As the Civil War began, a local school was closed. But one day Matilda was awakened by her mother, who said that it’s time to go to school: it had been opened again and Mr Pop Eye would be a teacher there. For the first time children saw Mr Watts dressed in a suit, ‘cause before he worn just a T-shirt and shorts and was, as everyone in the island, barefoot. He worn the suit all the next lessons. On the first lesson Pop Eye said that he didn’t know many different subjects and he would tell the children just all he knew. And he promised them to introduce them Mr Dickens. Only the next lesson the pupils got to know that Mr Dickens was not another white man in the island, but the author of “Great Expectations”.
Reading of this book was actually the only subject at school. Matilda and all the other children were captured by this book. They were retelling it to their parents at home and were thinking over the plot during the nights. Matilda did it too, but her mother didn’t like that her daughter became smarter than her, and it was the result of that book’s affect, so she started to hate Mr Watts. She started coming to the lessons and preaching about God and Bible. But children didn’t hear her, they preferred “Great Expectations”: the story about Pip and his life.
At that time The Civil War was developing, many men from the Matilda’s village joined the rebels. And the “Redskins”, local army, often came to the village to find them. Once, when they came, they found a word “PIP” written in the sand. They asked who is that Pip, all people kept silence, but then one boy, thinking that it would be good if he helped the army, said that Mr Watts knows him. Mr Watts said that it was just a character from a book. The Redskins asked to show them the book, but when Matilda came to school, the book disappeared. The Redskins promised that they would come the next time and then Mr Watts had to show that Pip to them. The next day Matilda accidentally found the book in her father’s staff. She understood that her mother put it there. She wanted to save Mr Watts, but she couldn’t tell about the book anybody, thus she would betray her mother.
In some time Grace, Mr Watts’ wife, died. On the funeral the villagers saw how deep was Mr Watts’ grief, they forgot about their alienation from this man, they told him all they knew about his wife: about her childhood, about her intelligence at school, about her character before she left the village and went to Europe, where she met him.
When the Redskins came back and didn’t find Pip, they killed Mr Watts, Matilda’s mother and some other villagers and fed pigs with them. Matilda didn’t feel anything at that time, her mind, emotions and thoughts seemed to die.
In two days she and some other villagers managed to run out from the village on the boat and came to Australia. There Matilda met her father who cooked as many cakes for her as birthdays of hers he had missed.
Matilda graduated the school, university, and went to Europe to find out anything about Mr Watts’ life. His ex-wife said that he was an actor and once he played with Grace: she was queen of Sheba, and he pulled her on her trolley in the play. He became addicted at her from the first sight and in time they had got married. Grace born a girl, but she didn’t live for long time: she died of meningitis. After that Grace got ill and Mr Pop Eye took her and they went to Bougainville, to her Homeland.
