'How was I supposed to know it was going to be the kind of day when you could get hit by a shooting star, or find an extra strip of gum in the pack?' This is how Anne remembers the day she first met Adam, the boy born with no immune system. But what hope is there for a relationship with a boy whose entire life is spent protected from the outside world by a plastic tent; who has never been kissed by his mother, much less kissed by a girl? Anne knows she can never be satisfied with being merely Adam's 'life-taster', but then comes the opportunity of an operation which could change all that.