This final book of the acclaimed trilogy that includes The Breadwinner and Parvana’s Journey continues the story of Parvana's best friend. Fourteen-year-old Shauzia, has escaped the misery of her life in Kabul, only to end up in a refugee camp in Pakistan. She still dreams of seeing the ocean and eventually making a new life in France.
Shauzia finally decides to leave the camp and try her luck on the streets. She is determined to earn money to leave Pakistan. Peshawar is dangerous and full of desperately poor children like herself, but she has her dog Jasper.She figures she knows how to survive, but an incident with a dishonest man lands her in jail, where she spends the night, terrified and despairing, before she is rescued by well-meaning Americans.
They take her and Jasper to their home in a residential part of Peshawar, and for a time she has a taste of a life where children are safe and have food to eat. But just when she thinks the family will ask her to stay with them, disaster ensues, and Shauzia finds herself driven back to the refugee camp, where she discovers the old choices are not so easy any more.