It is 1939. When she is evacuated from her home in London to her great-aunt's enormous house in the West Country, Lyla is expecting to be lonely. She's never been to school or had any friends, and her family has been at the centre of a scandal. But with the house being used to accommodate GIs and an entire class of evacuated schoolgirls, there's no time to think about her old life. Soon there are horses living indoors, the girls have taken over the house, and Lyla finds out that friends come in all shapes and sizes.