Julian is a 12-year-old boy whose family is just scraping by in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany in the early 1960s . When his mother and younger sister go away for a while he is left mostly alone in the apartment while his father works in the coal mine. He has to confront the confusing world of adults and older boys and the older girl next door on his own. Finally events build up and threaten to tear the family apart.