A heartwarming story, set in contemporary London and WWII Poland, about friendship, human kindness and endurance in the darkest situation.

Katya is a twelve-year-old girl with a big imagination. She loves art and working on her super-heroine comic Girl 38. At school, her best friend Gem is a gang leader, and a force to be reckoned with. But at home, Katya feels lonely when her parents are working at the hospital and her only company is an indifferent au pair. Even her neighbour, an elderly lady called Ania, is reclusive. Katya feels afraid of Ania, her overgrown garden and crumbling house. But when, one day, Katya sees her neighbour fall, she rushes to help and finds inside Ania’s house a mysterious partly-finished portrait…

As Katya and Ania’s friendship blossoms, Ania reveals her childhood story in Poland, a ‘walled village’ far away and her friend, Mila, who was taken away by soldiers. Meanwhile, at school, Gem takes a dislike to the new boy, Julius, and embarks on a spree of bullying. With her new insights which path will Katya choose to follow? Will Ania’s incredible story of friendship and endurance show Katya the way and will she unravel the mystery of the unfinished portrait?