Andy is a nine-year-old girl accompanying her father, his friend Charlie, and Charlie's son Mac on a doe hunting trip in Northern America. Though Charlie and Mac complain about Andy's presence, saying she's too young and small, her father insists that she deserves to be there because she wanted to go and because she is good luck, practically drawing animals right to her. Charlie and Mac tease Andy about being a girl, saying she shouldn't be on a hunting trip, which makes her work twice as hard to prove her worth, going out of her way to do menial tasks for them. Andy is uncomfortable with her femininity remembering a time when her mother's bathing suit top came undone, exposing her breasts and deeply embarrassing Andy. On their first day, the group doesn't spot any does and bunkers down for the night. While Andy is collecting firewood, she spots three deer and tells the group, though Mac doesn't believe her. They decide they will head out in the direction Andy saw the deer in the morning. Mac and Andy share a tent, and when he needs to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he asks her if she's ever seen a penis. Andy answers yes, resolving to kick Mac if he offers to show her his. Instead, Mac tells her how, during buck hunting, they cut a buck's penis off when carving it up, cutting it from tip to tail. The next day, they set out for the deer Andy saw, but still find none. After hours of fruitless hunting, they're eating lunch when Charlie begins teasing Andy about her full name, Andrea. Charlie insists that Andy must choose to be a girl or boy, going by Andrea or Andy, choosing to hunt or stay home. Andy gets upset, opting to go for a walk, whereupon she spots another doe, this time alone. The group heads towards it and gets into a big argument about who should shoot the deer until Andy's father declares that she should since she spotted it. This is the first time Andy's shot anything living, but eager to prove herself to the men, she takes the rifle, secretly wishing the doe would hear them and run off. Finally, Andy shoots it, and it looks like a one-shot-kill at first, but the doe then pushes itself up and runs off. Though the group goes after it, they can't find it, and decide to go looking for it again the next morning, certain that it couldn't have gotten far. That night, Andy sleeps terribly, only able to see the deer. In the middle of the night, Andy wanders out, finding that the air is warm, though it is snowing. She sees the doe there, still with the shot in its chest, and Andy begins petting it, working her way towards the bullet wound. Andy slowly sticks her finger inside it and comes to grasp the doe's heart until it begins burning her. She removes her hand, steaming and streaming with blood, and runs back into her tent. When she wakes the next morning, her hand feels withered, and she can still smell the blood. When they reach the area where Andy shot the deer, they find the doe, and her father begins to gut it. Finally, Andy runs off, hearing her mother's voice and deciding to go by Andrea.