It is summertime, and Billy has just turned 11. His widowed mother can’t buy him the bicycle he dreams and is quick to remind him that they have very little money. Billy’s mom takes in stranger Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins), who hires Billy to read to him and watch out for "the low men," who wear hats, drive fancy cars, and leave odd messages in code on telephone poles. Billy thinks Ted is a little loony, but he agrees, at first because he wants to earn money for the bicycle, and then because he is drawn to Ted's warmth, humor, and even his oddness. He begins to see signs of the low men, but he does not tell Ted. When Billy touches Ted, he gets a little bit of Ted's psychic ability. Even more important, though, is that way that Ted, like all special grown-ups in the lives of children, guides Billy to a new knowledge of himself and the world. Ted helps Billy realize that his friend Carol is more special to him than he thought, that he deserves better treatment from his mother, and that the town bully is not as powerful as he thinks.