"Sometimes people disappear into the North and are never heard from again." When her papá doesn't return, twelve-year-old Ixchel, a Maya from the Yucatan, resolves to leave home and make her way across the treacherous border into the United States to find him. Chel relies on an inexperienced smuggler and faces unknown dangers in a border tunnel. Frightened, but resourceful, she is driven by hope, love for her father, and her dream of going to school.