Billy's parents could ill afford to pay for circus tickets for him or for his younger brothers, let alone to pay for summer vacations. And so he dreaded the very thought of going back to school in September, and the embarrassment of being asked once again by his teacher, "Where did you go this past summer?" But this summer would be very different, as his fortune would at long last change. He would meet and befriend Julie the elephant, star of the old Hunt Brothers Traveling Circus. She would give him an experience he would finally be proud to share with all of his classmates, one that no else in his class could ever have imagined - and one that he would remember for the rest of his life.