Notes

When ten-year-old Abbas arrives in England to start a new life - having just fled conscription into the
Iranian army and survived almost three months alone in Istanbul, Turkey, waiting for a visa - he does
not know that his troubles have only just begun.Abbas's cousin packs him off to boarding school, and
infrequent phone calls are his only contact with his beloved mother in Iran. Things get worse when
Abbas is threatened with deportation and forced to work through the nights during his school holidays
to repay his 'debt', and worse still when, at the age of thirteen, he finds himself