The film is set in 1890s London. Sarah lived happily in India with her father, but when he was drafted into military service he placed Sarah in a boarding school in London. Sarah was lonely, but she made some good friends at school. Suddenly her father was announced dead in a mine accident and Sarah became an orphan. Now she goes on a long and dangerous journey to find her father, who loved her and called her a "little princess".

A twelve years old girl Lena who has come to live with her grandfather in a small Russian town is being bullied by her classmates. She took the rap of being a class traitor because she was in love with the boy who had betrayed his classmates when they were bunking off and going to cinema instead of a literature lesson. The class is penalized for that, not being allowed to go to Moscow for fall holidays with the rest of the school. Lena is being ostracized, "boycotted" however not telling the truth, waiting that the boy himself would confess to be guilty.