Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. They know they are different to 'normal' girls but their attempts to find out what being an ordianry teenager are like - buying nice clothes instead of wearing Mum's odd hand-made garments, reading teenage magazines etc - are greeted with fury by their Dad. But when Dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom.