Maia is an Egyptian girl who lived at the time of the pharaohs. Her normal happy life is interrupted when she is kidnapped and made to work as an unpaid home help in a house very far from her own. Her only possessions are the clothes she wears and her very special red slippers. When one of these is stolen she is desperately sad. But help comes from an unexpected place and her plight comes to the attention of the pharaoh. The story is based on an Egyptian folk tale.