The story is narrated by a fifteen-year-old boy who flees from a brutal war in Africa with his parents and little sister and they settle in Australia as refugees. There, they encounter a type of life they are not expecting, and so their lives are turned upside-down. Quarrels and police intervention separate the parents, and the two kids are forced to stay with their mother. Without their father's usual supervision, they become delinquent and are enticed to become drug couriers until the police step in.