Sanaz, a twelve-year-old girl living in Tehran is starting middle school. Her main goal on the first day of school is to find friends who would protect her against bullies targeting her rich-kid status and good rapport with teachers. In class, she meets the ideal duo, two cool girls who ignore her at first, but become her friends after she performs a prank that results in a surprize quiz being cancelled. The three spend grade six doing mischief and having fun while the Iran-Iraq war reshapes the world in the background.
When Sanaz comes back from Germany after summer, to start seventh-grade, she senses a shift in her friends. They act distant and dismissive, and overtime they become bullies. They use the knowledge they gained from their friendship with Sanaz to torment her, manifesting the very fears she had in the beginning.
Because of the fallout between her and her friends, Sanaz spirals into depression, thinking she should never have trusted anyone. The only way she sees out of this nightmare is to move to a different class, something she regrets later when the school administration moves her to a classroom where she knows nobody.
On the day of her transfer, Sanaz’s classmates rally behind her and demand that she stays. This makes Sanaz realize how she had the wrong impression of them all this time. Unlike what the bullies had told her, her classmates did not want her gone. They were willing to stand up to the school administration to keep her in their class. Heartened by this revelation, Sanaz stays, but vows to never reveal parts of her that are bullying fodder to anyone else.
The war finally comes to Tehran. Under heavy assault by Iraqi long-range missiles, Sanaz and her family flee to Northern Iran. At her grandfather’s factory compound in Gonbad, where the family is staying for the duration of the attacks, Sanaz tries to show-off her daredevil side to her cousins by climbing a 4 story water tower with no fall protection. The act leaves her so terrified that she decides not to prove herself to anyone again if it involves endangering her life.
When Sanaz and her sister are sent to a school in Gonbad, Sanaz doesn’t immediately look for friends as she is more guarded now. A local girl approaches and says she wants to be her friend. She claims all the other girls in class hate Sanaz for being a refugee from the capital, and that she is the only one who can be her true friend. Sanaz, no longer as naïve, talks to some of the other girls and finds out her new friend lied to her. According to her classmates, her new friend is a gossipmonger and manipulator who like to turn people against each other. Sanaz, having firsthand experience with friendship betrayals, distances herself form said friend and becomes close with the two girls who comforted her about her refugee status and told her it has nothing to do with how her classmates perceive her.
The spurned girl orchestrates a plan for a teacher to call out Sanaz in class. The teacher catches Sanaz without her homework, but announces that she forgives her due to being a refugee. It’s what the gossipmonger claimed would appall her classmates, but Sanaz’s new friends reassure her again that that’s a not the case and no one could fault her for something that isn’t in her control.
Sanaz returns home and scores the highest GPA at her old school. She no longer hides it from her peers and, for the first time, feels confident about her achievement. The government orders all students who missed completing the school year to attend summer school, placing Sanaz right back in the stressful setting she had escaped from months ago. This time, however, Sanaz is more assertive because of her experiences and what she learned from her friends in Gonbad. She no longer worries about her image or seeks protection from others. Then the ultimate test arrives.
A roadside bomb goes off in front of Sanaz’s home on the day before an exam. Sanaz asks her teacher to excuse her from writing the test, but when the same courtesy isn’t given to another student in the same position, Sanaz faces a dilemma. Is she a bad person for receiving favorable treatment from a teacher? Is she a spoiled, rich brat with privileges others don’t have? That would have been her thought a year ago, but Sanaz has learned to embrace all sides of her now and doesn’t give in to her fear of judgment. This makes going to school easy for her. When her dad who is worried about her mental state, asks her if she wants to quit summer school and fly to Germany prematurely, Sanaz say no and chooses finish the school year.
Weeks later, when she is at school registering for eight grade, a girl asks Sanaz if she wants to sit together next year in case they end up in the same class. Sanaz laughs and says only if she doesn’t mind being seen with the biggest nerd in school.