This is a story of Phen, aged 11, who lives in Hillbrow in 1967. He loves reading and words the way other boys love racing cars and soccer. He can, almost literally, live in a book as he devours its pages. This is just as well as he stutters badly and has a sick father whose head lives in a library. Stephen is forced to live out his own story as he befriends a hobo in the local park called Heb 13:2. This eccentric angel offers unorthodox advice as the boy's life spins deeper and deeper into turmoil. Forced to grow up much quicker than other boys his age, Phen's friendship with Heb will guide him towards adulthood in such a way that one starts to suspect Heb, whose name is short for Hebrews 13:2 ("Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares), who might be an angel came to live among men.