Suspected of attacking a boy from town and determined to protect her secrets and her twin sister, Jo flees into the woods, where she discovers the truth behind her mother's disappearance fifteen years ago.

"A wild, nameless girl the townspeople call Wee Sister Strange roams through forests and marshes and bogs in search for a bedtime story"--

Unhappy Penelope Lumley is trapped in unhappy Plinkst! Even the beets for which Plinkst is inexplicably famous fail to grow in this utterly miserable Russian village. Penelope anxiously counts the days and wonders how she will ever get back to England in time to save all the Ashtons--who, she now knows, include herself and the Incorrigible children, although their precise location on the family tree is still a mystery--from their accursèd fate. Her...