Tom is eleven years old and lives in an old mobile home with his mother, Joss. She's relatively young; she had Tom when she was thirteen and a half. Joss loves to party and often goes out with friends on weekends, leaving Tom often alone. He has to fend for himself. To eat, he sometimes picks vegetables from the neighboring gardens. He's very careful, however, because his mother has told him he could be sent to child welfare if he's caught, and she wouldn't be able to get him back. One evening, while searching for a new garden to gather food, Tom comes across Madeleine, a ninety-three-year-old woman. She's lying there, crying among her cabbage plants, unable to stand. Without Tom's coincidental presence, the poor old woman might well have been abandoned there...