Matilda is a 13-year-old girl living in a remote village surrounded by civil unrest in the Pacific. With services shutting down, the only remaining white man, Mr Watts, takes over classes in the schoolroom, reading aloud to his class from Great Expectations, a book by his friend Mr Dickens. Soon Dickens' hero Pip starts to come alive for Matilda, becoming as real to her as her god-fearing mother, and the greatest friendship of her life begins. But on an island at war, the power of the imagination can be a dangerously provocative thing...