Ten-year-old Robyn is the best shoplifter in the Liverpool tenement block she calls home. She's as tough as they come, but while she puts food on the table and tries to fit in at school, her mum and abusive step-father sleep off their hangovers at home.

As often as she can, Robyn escapes to her nan's cosy flat on the other side of town, where she reads Anne of Green Gables and nibbles on tea and toast. But she can't stay there forever. And when her father's cruelty escalates at home she knows it's time to disappear. Pushed beyond endurance, Robyn sleeps rough on city backstreets, until help from a stranger offers the first steps to change in her terrorized life.