Josie Peters is number one in her class. The class is going on a field trip, but she thinks she cannot go because her family is too poor to pay for it. Her school has a fund for situations like that, but her father will not accept any charity and insists that he will get the money himself. The night before the field trip Ralph Peel, Len Peter's employer, is mugged and the proceeds of the day are stolen. Josie also has a crush on her teacher Roger Gifford, and when her father reads about it in her diary he believes that her fantasies about him are true. The ventriloquist Ernie Dobson has died and left his dummy Enoch to David, who treats the dummy like a real person and drives Vernon Scripps mad.

DS Dawson tries to catch a drug smuggling gang with the help of PC Mason, but also has to fight the new DI, who does not like women in CID and blames her for every setback. To crack the case she leans on her informer to get information about the next shipment. Gina has started ante-natal classes and befriends the young girl Sally, who is expecting her first baby. But Gina is not impressed with Sally's boyfriend Jonny, who is not all he is cracked up to be. Far from as a matter of fact. Joyce Jovett's uncle has died and she put pressure on Bernie Scripps to give him the best services possible. But Bernie wants to call it off because he has to fix his broken down hearse first. Aunt Peggy fails to see the problem because Bernie also has an old horse-drawn cortège. But then again she wasn't around the last time the cortège was used.