AllMovie

Sabine (Petra Laemmel) is an enterprising young girl who has just been dealt a blow at her orphanage. Her beloved teacher is pregnant and now she is deserting Sabine to go away and have her baby. The little girl is barely recuperated from the death of her parents in an automobile accident a few years earlier, and her teacher's imminent departure is more than she can handle. So Sabine runs away for a few days, much to the consternation of the teacher, her teacher's husband, and the police -- who are all out looking for her. After Sabine "escapes" she comes across a circus troupe, she attends a funeral, and infiltrates the band for awhile to "help out" one of the musicians, she leaves and runs into a little Polish boy who is lost and does not know a word of German. After she manages to get him safely to the police station (without anyone noticing her), she continues on with her adventures. Her first night out she spends with a pensioned worker who has partied a little too much earlier in the day -- this was the day of his retirement. As Sabine meets a varied array of adults and children, she is always able to lend them a hand -- and often seems to have more sense than they do. She knows she will have to go back to the orphanage and face the consequences of her idyll -- but by the second day she is already beginning to feel homesick, and so when a patrolling squad car happens to pass her by, she starts figuring out a way to let them find her, without the police being aware of her cooperation in the matter.