Margaret is ten years old and is looking forward to returning home after two years at a boarding school. But when she finally returns home, her mother does not recognize her and shouts, "Not my daughter!" This is not the welcome Margaret had hoped for. She has forgotten the language of her people and has trouble swallowing her mother's food. Margaret is not even allowed to play with her friend Agnes because people think she looks too much like the hated foreigners. She has become a stranger among her own people.

In this extraordinary second book, Margaret paints a portrait of her difficult learning to find her place again and reconcile her old personality with her new one.