A class of five-year-old children gets lost in the forest after their schoolmistress faints from eating wild berries. All alone, they encounter a fourteen-year-old runaway, Tom the Truant, who lives in a centennial oak tree. Tom strikes a deal with them: he will bring them back to their parents, safe and sound, when they have forgotten everything they learned in school. A field trip led by a "master Truant�, or how to re-enchant the world with fantasy and impertinence.