A 9-year-old girl Trisha, the main character of the novel, is going on a small trip to the forest with her Mom and elder brother. She takes a baseball cap with the logotype of her favorite sport club, her Walkman and some food. Her companions are quarreling while walking in the forest, and when Trisha asks them to wait for her when goes “to make Number One”, they don’t even hear her. So, the girl turns off their way.
Her adventures take place from this point. After making what she has needed, she tries to go back to her relatives, but understands that she got lost. First she tries not to panic and to keep calm. But time passes and Trisha becomes more and more anxious. She is looking for the way, listening to the air to hear some voices, which will help her to get out of the depth of the forest; she is shouting, so that somebody would hear her. But there is no result. She goes somewhere, hoping that she will finally find the way. But she doesn’t know that she goes in a completely opposite direction.
She starts to panic, and the only thing which “warms” her is the cap and Walkman, where the match with her love, one of the players Tom Gordon, is broadcasted. Trisha is going more and more away from people into the huge forest. The mosquitoes are at each her turn, they bit all her body. And, in addition, her loathed inner voice is constantly annoying her, reminding that she may not live to her 10, that nobody has noticed that she has disappeared, that she will never come back home.
Trisha finds some berries, leafs, and though her friend has once said that they are baneful, she eats them. She keeps going, having taken on her cap, because it helps her to stay calmer and sober. It’s getting dark and the girl is hungry, so she eats some of her food supplies. Somewhere in the forest near her she hears cracking of a branch. It comes to her mind that somebody is following her.
Next days of her wandering are filled with hallucinations more than with the reality which actually takes place. She meets three strange people, two in white clothes and the other one – in black. The last person is the God of the Lost. She starts to pursue her, having taken a look of a beast. The girl, having eaten her tiny food supplies in two days, is hungry, thirsty and full of fright. Her hallucinations become deeper and deeper. She starts talking with Tom Gordon, he even appears to her from time to time. It helps her to calm down a bit.
During all this time her mother and brother, having come back to their car and having seen that Trisha is not with them, call the police and a local rescue service starts the searches of the girl. But Trisha is much further their search area. Trisha loses her weight, she is worn out, but what is very oddly for a 9-year-old girl, she goes on her way to survive. And finally, after several days of wandering she hears the sound of an engine. She can’t believe it. She goes towards this sound and in some time she sees an abandoned village in the valley. She is going to go there but suddenly the Beast stands on her way. She understands that she has to struggle with it. She imitates the Tom Gordon’s throw (but instead of a ball she has her Walkman in her hand), being sure that this will kill her enemy. But suddenly she hears the sound of bang near her ear, a hunter, who lives in this area, passed through this place, while he saw the girl and a bear in front of her.
The girl had made a strange movement, like in baseball play, and a bear started to recede. It was a wonder for the man. Then he calls the rescue service and police. Trisha is taken to the hospital where her parents and brother meet her with tears in their eyes. She has pneumonia and in general is in very bad state. But she will live. At the hospital, before falling asleep, Trisha asks her father (who, by the way, also loves that baseball team as Trisha loves, and Tom Gordon is his favorite player too) with just a sight to take her Cap on her. Her father understands her sign. Then she falls asleep.
