The Borrowers

Kate sits with her aunt Mrs May and crochets a quilt as she laments missing items. Mrs May tells the legend of the Borrowers, tiny people who live hidden inside houses and quietly borrow objects. She recalls that her younger brother once befriended a Borrower named Arrietty Clock.

Pod Clock returns shaken from a borrowing expedition and reports that a human boy has seen him. The family realizes they must tell Arrietty the truth about humans living above them. Homily concludes that Arrietty should be allowed to accompany Pod on borrowing trips.

A few days later, Pod invites Arrietty to join him on a borrowing foray and she steps outdoors for the first time, slipping through a safe ground patch beneath the grate into the garden. In the sunlight she meets the Boy, and they strike a bargain: he will bring her books if she reads to him. Arrietty wonders aloud about whether other Borrowers exist beyond their own family, and the Boy asks her to share more about life above.

The Boy delivers Arrietty’s letter to a badger sett two fields away, hoping Aunt Lupy and other kin might have emigrated there. This exchange opens a new channel of contact between the Borrowers and the human world.

The Boy returns with a cryptic reply asking Arrietty to tell Aunt Lupy to come back. Arrietty passes the message back to Pod and Homily, and the request unsettles the family because it hints at contact beyond their current hiding place.

Pod catches Arrietty taking the letter; the family fears expulsion from their hidden home. The discovery tightens the Borrowers' situation as they worry about human intervention.

To aid their escape, the Boy locates the Clocks' home and brings gifts of dollhouse furniture from the nursery, initiating a period of extraordinary borrowing. In return, Arrietty is allowed to go outside more often and reads to him.

Arrietty's freedom expands as she spends more time outdoors and continues reading to the Boy in exchange for his gifts. The renewed borrowing reshapes their trust and the dynamic between Borrowers and human contact.

Mrs Driver, the Boy’s guardian, grows suspicious of his activities and suspects theft after catching him near a curio cabinet. One night, her lamp shines through the floorboards, revealing the Borrowers’ hidden world beneath the Clocks’ home. She is horrified to realize tiny people live there.

To prevent the Boy from aiding their escape, Mrs Driver locks him in his room and hires a rat catcher to fumigate the house. The Borrowers’ danger escalates as exposure to humans increases.

The Boy escapes confinement and breaks through the grating to create a real exit. A cab arrives to take him away, and Mrs Driver drags him toward the vehicle, leaving the Borrowers’ fate uncertain.

Time passes and Mrs May visits the home hoping to prove her brother’s stories true. She leaves small gifts at the badger sett and later discovers a miniature memoranda book recounting the Borrowers’ tale, seemingly written by Arrietty.

Mrs May discovers that Arrietty’s handwriting matches her brother’s handwriting, suggesting a bridge between legend and memory. The twist blurs the line between Borrowers’ world and family history, implying the stories contain real history.

The frame narrative closes by hinting that the Borrowers survive in memory and legend as the tale connects back to Kate and Mrs May. The shared story ensures Arrietty’s world remains alive in human memory and imagination.