Oseyi, an eight-year-old boy, lives in the village of Colihaut, in Dominica, which is the home of a particular masquerade/carnival art-form/African Retention known as the Band Mauvais (Bad Band). He has developed a deep-seated fear of the masquerades, even when they are worn by children his own age, like Tamika, his close friend, from a combination of a picture of his father in a red costume hanging menacingly in his house, a frightening early childhood experience with a costume from this band, and his mother Rita's oft repeated hatred of it as the cause of his father's death.