Charly is not only an only child, but also a loner and a real dreamer to boot. While the children in the neighborhood celebrate Christmas with their parents, he waits with his mother for his father, an aircraft engineer in the armed forces. He comes home at night and gives the disappointed son a homemade airplane instead of the bicycle he wanted. A few weeks later, the father has an accident and dies. Charly reacts seemingly unmoved and suppresses reality. Only when the plane develops magical powers, flies by itself and returns to him again and again, he believes in a sign from his father...