Little Arietty Clock, who lives with her parents (Pod and Homily) is a naturally curious girl and lonely besides. When, on her very first trip out to Borrow ("The Borrowers," 1952), she is "seen" by a little human boy, she becomes friends with him and sets off a chain of events that will threaten her family's very existence -- and make staying in their home beneath the kitchen floorboards impossible.

In this third tale, Pod, Homily and Arietty are forced once more to move when their new home, the gamekeeper's cottage, is closed. They begin the search for Little Fordham, a mythical miniature village where they can live in safety under the noses of human tourists. Their journey takes them first down a drainhole with tidal waves of bathwater; then downstream in a rusted-out kettle and in Spiller's "boat" (a knifebox with a butter-knife paddle). It is a dangerous journey for such tiny people, and the crisis comes when their boat sinks and a human discovers them stranded on a heap of flotsam in the middle of the river. Once more, they must adapt and overcome if they are to survive long enough to begin a new life in Little Fordham.