Nadja (aka Nadja Applefield, Nadja Preminger) is the main character of the series.
Nadja Applefield is a charming and sunny Franco-Austrian girl, with a talent for dancing and making friends wherever she goes. Even though she is very young, she shoulders responsibility quite well, often taking care of the younger children at the orphanage. On the other hand, she is impulsive to the point of foolhardiness and extremely trusting, which leads others to take easy advantage of her and even abuse her thoroughly, if the right buttons are pressed. Her biggest dream is to someday be reunited with her mother.
In the last quarter of the series, she departs for England leaving Dandelion Troupe to look for witnesses to testify her identity, after finding out that her former friend Rosemary was impersonating her and was spending time with her mother.
Early in the series, she meets the Harcourt twins, Francis and Keith. She initially feels attached to Francis and once mistook Keith for Francis. Halfway through the series, she seems to be falling in love with Keith, as Francis tells him, even though she doesn't confess or seems unaware of her true feelings. She is ultimately forced to choose between them romantically. Near the end of the series, she chooses Francis over Keith because she thought that he was the first person to help her. Indeed, the first person to help her was Keith. Since she is confused about her feelings, she chooses Francis, but later comes to realize the one that she loves is Keith. Francis is the one that make her realize it. At the end, she did not choose either one and rejoined the Dandelion Troupe. It is hinted that she will make another decision. Interestingly, she is very popular among the males of the show, with Francis, Keith, Christian, Kennosuke, Oliver, TJ, and Fernando all developing crushes on her.
Nadja was given to Miss Applefield to raise when she was a baby, her only possession at the time being an elaborated heart-shaped brooch. Nadja grew up at the orphanage believing her parents were dead; in the days before her 13th birthday, Nadja received a surprising gift in the mail: a trunk containing a ball gown and diary, both keepsakes belonging to her birth mother. The gown was worn by Nadja's mother at her first ball, and the diary was her mother's colorful description of all the people she met and danced with at that ball. Nadja is amazed by this gift, and stunned to discover that her mother might actually be alive out there somewhere. When bad men arrive to steal the brooch away from Nadja, she leaves the Applefield orphanage and begins a career as a dancer with the travelling Dandelion Troupe. Her true date of birth is unknown, even by Nadja herself.
