Nerdy Jewish Nelly Sue Edelmeister, daughter of a New York mother and Berlin musician in Berlin gets straight A's, except for gym. When she hears her dream prince, actual royal Edouard, a fellow astronomy buff who studies in Luxemburg, patronizes the basketball tournament hosted there by a European school she wants to join her school's girls team. So she wants Max Minsky, son of the divorced Bavarian manager of the music café where her dad plays, to coach her, in exchange for the money his ma pays for supposedly tutoring him academically. In fact she makes his homework and neglects Hebrew class in preparation for the "bat mithzwa" (synagogue initiation) her ma is obsessed with.