Miri was one of the seemingly juvenile denizens of a remarkably Earthlike planet hundreds of light-years from Earth. Although she appears to be 12 or 13, she actually turned out to be hundreds of years old. She, and the other children of her world had lived unnaturally prolonged lives as children. All the adults were long dead.
It's soon revealed that once the children of this world begin to mature into adults, they get sick with a weird deforming disease, which is ultimately fatal. Alas, Kirk and his landing party almost immediately manifest symptoms of the disease. They stay on the planet surface, and with Miri's "help", begin to try to find a cure.
She's not really a trustworthy helper.
The other children of Miri's tribe, the Onlies, flat-out mistrust Kirk and his gang of "Grups". They avoid them as much as possible, and later interfere by stealing their communicators. Then they kidnap Yeoman Rand. That last bit is actually Miri's idea.
Miri develops a crush on Kirk, and when she sees Kirk consoling a distraught Rand one time with a perfectly platonic hug, she develops a jealous rage. She convinces the other onlies to kidnap Rand. She gives them a bullshit reason to do it, while keeping quiet about her real reason.
At the end, after confronting the savage Onlies and taking a beating at their hands, Kirk finally manages to convince them to listen to him, and cooperate with him. Ultimately, McCoy does come up with a cure for the deadly disease, much to Miri's relief, since she was beginning to shows signs of infection.
Miri is a scrappy survivor, and she's a totally sympathetic creature, but because of her dangerous dupliciousness I have to class her as a bad girl.
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