The railway siding in the flat sandy desert of central Australia, with its row of cottages and the weekly "tea and sugar" train, is all the world that fourteen-year-old Sylvie Edwards has ever known. She is aware that her mother longs to return to city life - but Joe Edwards has his own reasons for staying in the outback.
The trouble begins when Sylvie's eleven-year-old brother, Reg, vandalises the tiny school and Sylvie agrees to run away with him . . .
