Life is not safe for Alem. His father is Ethopian, his mother Eritrean. Their countries are at war, and Alem is welcome in neither place.

So Alem is excited to spend a holiday in London with his father - until he wakes up to find him gone. What seems like a betrayal is in fact an act of love, but now Alem is alone in a strange grey country. On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council, he lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something from his father.