Cricket, a young lizard-boy living on the streets of an industrial seaside city, yearns to sever his ties to mammalian civilization. When a friendly sea-serpent offers him such a chance, he leaps on it. In a new land, he meets Scorch, a cricket child, who is driven to seek a place that he sees in a recurring dream: a barren valley among impossibly tall mountains. Knowing this place may not exist, the two set off-- Ill prepared but optimistic -- to find it! But two inexperienced children are ripe for exploitation by those with no patience for dreaming. To find this lonely valley, Cricket and Scorch must combat ponderous societal pressure and their own self-doubt as they follow their trail made of hope.