When quiet, nine-year-old Ahmet arrives in their classroom, a boy and his friends fail to draw him out but try a new plan after learning he is a Syrian refugee.
When a new boy named Ahmed joins Alexa's class at her London school, all of the students have questions: Why does the new boy never go to lunch or recess with the other kids, and why doesn't he talk to anyone? Everyone has different theories, but when Alexa and her friends are waiting after school to give Ahmed some fruit and other small gifts, they overhear two adults saying that Ahmed is a refugee and no one speaks his language. Gradually, as they befriend Ahmed and speak to him through the assistant the school hires to translate, they piece together his story: how he and his family escaped from the bombs in Syria, how his little sister drowned in the sea, and how he was separated from his parents and doesn't know how to find them again. When Alexa learns that the United Kingdom is about to close its borders to refugees, she and her friends embark on a bold and dangerous plan to persuade the Queen to intervene on Ahmed's behalf.
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