The second story of Tim and Jessica starts with a mysterious death. The location of a very rare flower, a beautiful Lady's Slipper Orchid, lies in a coded message. But what dark event has silenced its sender? At the same time a different ORCHID, an experimental rocket, crashes on the island. In urgent and comic hunts for both "orchids," Tim and Jessica join with dangerously helpful Uncle Wilfred, Jessica's scheming young sisters Alice and Rosalind and other rich characters. Bigger problems are a clash with ruthless Graham Fytts and the arrival of murky international politics on quiet Lifandoy. Tim struggles to explain such evil. Jessica, reading an old Bible, finds women in it whose lives speak to her of her father's death at sea and her relationship with the new lifeboat crew. Can Jessica's sharp brains find either "orchid" in time? Might Alice's mischief, Uncle Wilfred's helpfulness and Jessica's bravery combine to save the day? And where is that rocket, after all?