Can a band of adolescents fashion a new social order? Jema, the cheerful and well-liked teenage daughter of the Governor, spends summers with her family and a group of children at a jungle retreat far from the capital. She and Kris, the Chancellor’s daughter, have been best friends since childhood. When their parents are called away to quell an uprising, a terrible fire erupts and the children have to face the challenges of survival on their own. Rangi, elected leader, imposes his recklessness on the tribe; then a troubling rift between Kris and Jema gives way to a more violent one between the boys and girls. As the conflict deepens and the barbarism of the jungle threatens to resurface, a strange parrot visits Jema, whispering cryptic utterances in her ear, daring her to shed her childish assumptions and do what the jungle requires to become a woman . . .