The lives of an eleven-year-old runaway foster child, an old man with a tragic past, and a worried foster mother intertwine as they rescue a group of kidnapped children from an evil tour guide at a cathedral in Northern France.
Things are difficult for weleve-year-old Jan and her mother after her father's death, and when it turns out that her beloved horse needs anoperation, Jan reluctantly gets money from an elderly woman whom she has befriended.
Hearing her friend Marj, the elderly lady next door, speak wistfully of China, Alexis digs a hole all the way through the earth to that exotic country and brings back a postcard for Marj's birthday.
In Japan, the death of her former landlady triggers a young woman's memories about her father's death when she was six years old, and the special way the old lady helped her to cope with the loss.