Uprooted from the 1960s tenements of Glasgow's tough Castlemilk, an 11-year-old Scots girl finds herself a stranger in an English village school. Befriended by the solitary son of a gamekeeper, her streetwise confidence soon complements his quiet country craft. Together they ride a rural rollercoaster of seasonal fun, seemingly raising the village ghosts on Halloween, running the gauntlet of local landowners and school bullies who dispute their stamping ground, and defying catastrophe when a runaway cart endangers Pearl's accession as village May Queen. The stories conjure the jeopardy of childhood, and the recurring insider-outsider conflict. Their constant theme is one of innocent loyalty and unselfishness, set against a social backdrop of the simple life of village folk. As Pearl succeeds in gaining acceptance, there grows a concomitant threat to her relationship with Dean, and the hint of a budding love story.