Opal Dream

Little Kellyanne Williamson lives with her family in Lightning Ridge, a small town in the middle of the Australian outback well known for its reserves of precious stones. Kellyanne is an average little girl; but there’s something strange about her friends Pobby and Dingan, because, apart from Kellyanne herself, nobody can see them. Kellyanne’s brother Ashmol isn’t the only one who thinks that the twosome are nothing but the product of his sister’s vivid imagination. In fact, the entire community of the small town knows that Pobby and Dingan only exist in Kellyanne’s mind. But in fact, in a place like Lightning Ridge, that’s nothing out of the ordinary. The town seems to attract plenty of oddballs and eccentrics, soldiers of fortune and adventurers, hoping to make a mint in the town’s opal mines. Or, as Ashmol says: “If you ask me, Lightning Ridge is full of maniacs and wackos.”
For the most part, Kellyanne’s fantasy really gets on her big brother’s nerves. Is it really necessary for her to talk so loudly to her invisible friends and throw her arms around them as if they were standing there before her? But their father insists on indulging his daughter – he even takes these two extra ‘members of the family’ down the opal mine. One day he unwittingly – or perhaps deliberately - ‘leaves’ them in the mine. Pobby and Dingan have gone missing!
Kellyanne is sick with worry. Wanting to help, Ashmol sends everyone out in search of her friends. But of course, nobody finds them. And so, Ashmol has no alternative but to climb down the mine shaft himself…