Wheeler is six, her mother has gone to England to find work, and she is left with her two sisters, three cousins and two aunts. She couldn't feel more alone. It feels like a new world, and one in which she has to grow up fast. But she doesn't want to. She wants her mother to send for her as promised. Everyone tells her just to wait. But for how long? She feels increasingly under threat and begins to realise there is no one looking out for her. No novel comes as close to the experience of childhood as this exploration of what it's like be left behind in a world you think you know.