Bingo Best and her family are newcomers to Mercury Beach, complete with twin BMWs and cases of champagne. At the local school Bingo is the fat girl, the rich girl whose father is something important in television and whose mother is a famous actor who goes up to Auckland by helicopter. A bizarre fund-raising event, a revival of the old Queen Carnival, draws Bingo into a group of friends who soon become a major force in the fund-raising business. But this Queen Carnival of the 90s turns out to be full of surprises and twists.