School has started, and Binny can't believe how terrible it is. She has a horrid hand-me-down uniform, and the kids make fun of her "posh" city accent.
Then a storm destroys the roof of Binny's house. Binny; her mother; her sensible older sister, Clem; and her rambunctious brother, James (and his chickens) are forced to move across town to a rental home at the end of a forbidding, unlit lane. Things only get worse when she calls their new landlady a "bossy old witchy woman" at school...in front of the landlady's daughter, Clare, who starts bullying Binny mercilessly.
Desperate to avoid school - and Clare - Binny throws herself into exploring her new home. She finds the relics of children who lived in the house one hundred years ago. And she finds a secret skulking amongst the undergrowth, where she discovers the tracks of a mysterious animal. An animal that might be endangered. An animal that Binny might save, if only Clare didn't keep getting in the way.
Feisty, fiercely loyal, and totally charming, Binny Cornwallis will have readers rooting for her through every twist and turn of this surprising and hilariously moving tale.
