A heritage listed home in the Riverina is up for grabs and Isabella's Mum falls hopelessly in love. Isabella feels the pinch of new shoes in another school and feels she the only one in town who's being stepped upon. Yet it seems the new immigrant family who come to pick oranges at the orchard become a target for intolerance too. But when her brother Abel takes leave from the Army barracks to disappear without a trace, the family's tree-change plummets them into their worst fears. As the hours march irrevocably on, hope is the only weapon they posses, as each of them learn that a hero is made, not born.