Abela lives in Tanzania. Her mother and sisters are dying of AIDs. Rosa lives in Sheffield with her mother — and she is devastated for another reason. Her mother announces that she wants to adopt a little girl from Tanzania, the country that Rosa's father was from.

Abela is shipped to England and forced to live cooped-up in a council flat. And Rosa is gradually reconciled to the idea of a new child — but when Anthony arrives, everyone is surprised! Abela, meanwhile, is in the kind but hapless hands of social services and, in despair, she runs away. It seems that Rosa and Abela will never get to be sisters after all.