Two housing scheme boys dream up a plan to steal priceless antiques from a nearby stately mansion - antiques that have been stored in packing crates for decades, and are just asking to be nicked. It's a plan that grows with them through their adolescent scrapes and battles. But one of the boys is really after the masterpiece portrait that hangs in the mansion house library. It obsesses him because it reminds him of his mother, like she was before his brother died. PROCEEDS FROM THE ROYALTIES WILL GO TO CANCER RESEARCH CHARITIES.