Although her mother is dead and her father is in prison, 15-year old girl Taraneh is a cheerful, pragmatic, and hard-working girl who lives with her grandmother. While earning her living as a part time assistant in a shop, she manages to also excel at school, winning a prize for her "skill at managing life." All that changes when she is seduced by Amir, a smooth-talking charmer who works in the shop next door. Before she discovers that she's pregnant, the immature and insensitive Amir flees to Germany. Taraneh drops out of school, her grandmother dies, leaving her homeless, and Amir's mother refuses to recognize the child. Taraneh courageously resists the pressures to have an abortion and is determined to raise the child herself. However, she learns that without a named father, her newborn will have no official identity in Iran.