Mandy

Mandy is a ten-year-old orphan at St. Martin's, loved well enough but hungry for a place that belongs to her alone. Slipping over the orphanage wall one day, she discovers a small deserted cottage hidden deep in the woods, its rooms empty and its garden gone wild. Through the changing seasons she adopts the cottage as her secret world, sweeping the floors, planting seeds, and nursing the neglected garden back into flower. Guarding the secret drives her to borrow and even lie, and when she falls dangerously ill alone at the cottage during a storm, the crisis finally brings her together with the family she has longed for, even as she gives the cottage back for other children to find.