Angry that her father has left, twelve-year-old Alice swears that she will live in her family's old Renaissance tent until he agrees to return; but after she meets her mute four-year-old neighbor Piper she finds herself becoming involved in the child's life--and when she hears the little girl speak a word for the first time in years she sets out to prove to Piper's parents that the dismal diagnosis they received for their daughter may be all wrong.