In an orphanage around the year 1900, the principal of an orphanage tries to earn some money by selling the orphans for child labour. The moment we step in the story one of the orphans, Wim, is about to be sold to a brutal man. The man wants Wim to go to the market with a little monkey to pickpocket people. By the time they get to the market, Wim succeeds in escaping with the monkey by hiding in an old canalboat with the help of Jet, a girl who lives at the countryside. When they arrive at the farm where Jet lives, he meets Jets little sister Sien and her friend Ot, two little children who will take care of Wim and the monkey for the next weeks. When the brutal man finally finds out the hiding place of Wim, a true chase follows and Wim is locked up in the orphanage again. But then Jet’s father, a schoolteacher, interferes….