Laurie is an English boy who moves to a hill town with his parents when his father is posted to India on work for two years.

Laurie makes two new friends: Anil, the son of a local cloth merchant, and Kamal, who lost his parents during Partition and now sells buttons and shoelaces but dreams of going to college. Anil and Kamal introduce Laurie to an enchanted world of beetle races, ghosts, chaat and Holi, and he shares with them the secret pool he finds on the mountainside. At the pool the boys fish, build dams, take midnight dips, wrestle, and ride buffaloes. It is there that they plan their grand adventure: a trek to the Pindari Glacier, were no one from their town has gone before. On the slopes of the beautiful mountain they meet pumpkin-eating bears, and keep a close lookout for the Abominable Snow-woman who feeds children fruit, honey, rice and earthworms.