Three adventurous and well-off Haitian girls, Lili, Lala, and Lila set out to rescue a servant girl named Tifani Restavèk from a mean neighbor family who mistreats her and makes her do all kinds of forced labor while their own children, especially KansonFè IronPants, tease her while watching her work her heart out in the stiffling Caribbean sun. These three girls go to private catholic schools in Port-au-Prince. Way before the quake that hit Haiti, the three girls devise a plan to start reading stories to Tifani while she stands by the fence. They want to teach her to read and write. In general, Restaveks (servant boys and girls whose parents can not take care of them and economically forced to let them go live with well-off city dwellers) do not expect to be treated well and go to school. Will these girls ever even get close to Tifani to tell her about their plans? A miracle would have to happen first. All of Tifani’s work is for nothing. Her only reward is more work and belittling. Tifani can not go to school or even take reading and writing lessons. Her supervisors, the Mesye and Madanm of the house would not let that happen. Then, on January 12, 2010, a 7.1 quake hit and destroyed Port-au-Prince and its nearby communities in less than 35 seconds. Lili, Lala and Lila’s mission changes. They set out to find and rescue Tifani from under the mountains of rubble. Will they ever find her alive? Is the quake the miracle that will make her supervisors, Mesye and Madanm KansonFè, set her free? Tifani may as well find her freedom right in the midst of the rubble that covers her frail body.
