Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku, the second best runner in Year 7, races through his new life in England blissfully unaware of the very real threat around him. Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister Lydia, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of city life. But his life is changed for ever when one of his friends is murdered. As the victim's nearly new football boots hang in tribute on railings behind fluorescent tape and a police appeal draws only silence, Harri decides to act, unwittingly endangering the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.