 In 1940, the five years old Paulette loses her parents and her dog under a Nazi attack in the country while escaping from Paris. The eleven years old peasant Michel Dolle sees the girl wandering with her dead dog in her hands and brings her to his home. She is welcomed and lodged by his simple family and she becomes a close friend of Michel. They bury her dog and decide to build a cemetery for animals and insects, stealing crosses in the cemetery, bringing problems to Michel s family with their neighbors.