Noah Keller's ordinary, everyday American life is smashed to smithereens the day his parents tell him his name isn't really Noah, his birthday isn't really in March, and his new home is going to be East Berlin, on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It's 1989, and everywhere all around countries are remaking themselves, but in East Germany the air is full of coal smoke, secrets, and lies. It's the least likely place in the world for a kid from America to make a friend. But then Noah meets Cloud-Claudia, the lonely girl who lives one floor down with her terrifying grandmother. Something has happened to her parents - but what?