This story begins in the final years of the Great Depression. Zayilla lives in a shack with Rose, her grandmother, who ignores the girl's existence. Also in the three-room shack is the primary occupant, Grandmam, Zayilla's great grandmother. As Zayilla starts school, she seems unaware of proper hygiene, appropriate clothing, or her lack of social skills, but she yearns to have parents. Who are her mother and father? Where are they?