For years, Martin has been working on his great play about cloud castles, flying pirates and a feisty princess. His secret role model for the leading character is his good friend Isabel, a cheeky young woman who is waging war on genetically modified seeds around the world. And she is leaving tomorrow to go to the middle of Africa for the next three years.
A village has to be destroyed for coal mining. Henning, a 15 years old boy, who wants to visit his grandfather one more time, realizes that nothing will be the way it used to be.
Ten-year-old Ole is full of mischief. He attempts to fly and is hospitalized with a broken leg. When he sees a Sherlock Holmes movie on TV, however, he forgets about the pains and comes up with a new plan. Disguised as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, he and his friend Andreas start searching for criminals. Soon, the two boys detect their first case. On the street they meet a man wearing a stuck-on beard. The hobby detectives find this very suspicious and decide to follow him.
The criminalist Hannes Bergemann tries to blackmail the city where he spent his youth. After many years returning to the familiar places of his childhood, he hopes to meet again his old friends, especially Fred, Helmuth and Richard, with whom he had a close childhood friendship. When confronted with a murder shortly after his arrival and given the task of investigating it, he has the painful experience that his friends are involved in the case.
The little African girl Asina is eagerly waiting for her new friend Karli. Karli is a young sailor from Rostock who has promised her a gift on his next arrival in Coccatuttibana. Karli keeps his promise and smuggles a stowaway onboard the “MS Wismar”. Kasimir, a snowman, finds shelter in a cooling chamber. Although the journey turns out to be turbulent, Karli and Kasimir manage to arrive in Africa in good health.
