Clever, sensitive Jama likes elephants better than people. While her classmates gossip - especially about the new boy, Leku - Jama takes refuge at the watering hole outside her village. There the twelve-year-old Maasai girl befriends a baby elephant she names Mbegu, Swahili for seed. When Mbegu's mother, frightened by poachers, stampedes, Jama and Mgebu are blamed for two deaths-one elephant and one human. Now Leku, whose mysterious and imposing father is head ranger at the conservancy, may be their only lifeline.