Robert Nobel, otherwise known as Norbert No-bottle, is being bullied by Jonathan Niker. The butt of Niker's jokes in class, he despairs of his newly divorced parents at home and is hopelessly in love with Kate Barber. Robert is also haunted by dreams that seem to tell the future as well as the past, as he discovers when a storyteller called Catherine invites some of his class to Wayfield House, the local old people's home. Robert has never been there before, except in his dreams. Once there he meets Edith Sorrel, a spiky old lady who chooses him as her partner in the Elders' Project.

Robert has been given a strange task by Edith Sorrel, the old lady he's met as part of his class Elders' Project. She tells him to find a place called Chance House, and it is only by chance that he finds it - a derelict and boarded-up house at 26 St Aubyns. Robert finds a way into the house but discovers that, although derelict, it is not empty. Having propped a door open as a safe retreat, he hears footsteps and the slamming of the door. Someone or something is with him in Chance House.

Robert Nobel feels bullied by everyone – his parents, the kids at school, and especially Edith Sorrel, his partner in the Elders' Project. She's bullied him into visiting the top floor flat at Chance House, a half-derelict Victorian mansion. He bunks off school to go there and climbs to the top of the house. As he climbs he hears the sound of wings beating and a voice calling to him, urging him on. He reaches the door on the very last flight and, as it swings open, sees a blast of light and three feathers falling from the ceiling.

Robert has done as Edith Sorrel asked and visited the top floor flat at Chance House. But before he can report back to her on what he found, Jonathan Niker challenges him to spend the night there, just the two of them. While Edith's condition worsens, the two boys settle down for the night and the creaks and noises of the old house test the strongest of nerves.

When Edith is well enough to see Robert again he shows her the three feathers he found in Chance House. She asks him to make her a Coat of Feathers, like the one in the Firebird story. Despite not knowing where to begin he agrees to try, hoping the coat might save the old lady's life. But with the coat only half finished, he takes it into school where Niker gets hold of it and threatens to destroy it. In an uncharacteristic rage Robert attacks him, knocks him unconscious and has to be dragged off by a horrified Miss Raynham.

Suspended from school for beating up Niker, Robert has lost the coat of feathers and maybe his chance to save Edith Sorrel's life. Fortunately Kate comes to the rescue – she brings back the coat and even helps him get more feathers. Robert still needs more feathers for the coat but he knows the only place to find enough good ones is at the old warehouse where he was locked in and abandoned by Niker and his gang. Can Robert overcome his fear and collect enough feathers to finish the coat? And even if he does, will he be in time to save his Firebird?