When Mary Pinny dies from a snakebite, she leaves her young daughter, Comity, and husband Herbert in the Middle of Nowhere. As Stationmaster of the Kinkindele Repeater Station, Herbert Pinny takes great pride in his job; receiving morse messages and passing them down the Wire to the rest of Australia and beyond. But Comity dreams of a different life - where her mother is alive and she has her own horse and a new piano - and sends letters to her grandmother and her snooty aunt full of colourful tales of her imaginary life. That is, until the new station assistant, Quartz Hogg, arrives and brings Comity and her father sharply back down to earth.