1971: While a savage civil war rages in East Pakistan, a thousand miles away in West Pakistan, in the safe, cosy village of Sabzbagh, life appears to continue undisturbed.

It is here at her family estate in Sabzbagh, that naive, privileged nine-year-old Laila is spending her winter vacation. Laila's world is peopled by adults - progressive parents, a protective ayah, and an imperious, old-fashioned grandmother. Adored and indulged though she is, Laila feels excluded from this enigmatic grown-up world. Much like the young heroes of her favourite Enid Blyton adventures, she yearns for a slice of the action, and with a best friend by her side. This friend is Rani - the spirited teenage granddaughter of a family servant. Rani, however, is hurtling into a forbidden love affair, and when she becomes pregnant, she has no one to turn to but Laila. Eager but artless, Laila plunges headlong into helping Rani. As she flounders in an adult world she does not understand, Laila unwittingly unleashes a catastrophe.