Meena is twelve years old and lives in the village of Tollington "the jewel of the Black Country" - in 1972. She is the daughter of Indian parents who have come to England to give her a better life. Her idyllic adolescence, surrounded by eccentric relatives and friends, is disrupted by the arrival in Tollington of Anita Rutter and her dysfunctional family. At 14 - blonde, aloof, beautiful, outrageous and sassy - Anita is everything Meena thinks she wants to be.