Emma Brown's life is turned upside down when her mother, Cynthia, has another baby. When the baby is born Cynthia doesn't seem able to cope and eventually has to go and stay with her tyrannical older sister across the city. Life gets even tougher for poor Em with her mother away; her best friend ostracizes her, and she's got the Board Man calling about her lack of attendance at school. When she decides to travel across Birmingham and bring her mother home, the woman she discovers is very different from the mother she remembers.