17-year-old Rabia Abdelfattah experiences a brand new world when she moves to Toronto, Ontario, from Alexandria, Egypt, with her family in the summer of 1997. Her parents fled Egypt after her father Samir Abdelfattah, a former Minister of Domestic Security, sold Egyptian state secrets to both the Israelis and the Americans. The family arrives in Canada as internationally hounded refugee claimants. As the only Hijab-wearing Muslim girl at a Catholic school, Rabia feels isolated and is the frequent target of racists and Islamophobes. Her only ally in this hostile environment is Joseph Guillot, a brilliant and cocky Afro-Caribbean student-athlete harboring an agenda of his own. Alone against hostile forces, who can Rabia truly trust ?