Tao thinks his friend Matt is really cool because Matt's parents let him have a nose ring, eat coke and mars bars for breakfast and don't hassle him much. Tao's parents have been separated for nearly a year, 'ten months, three weeks, thirteen hours and forty-seven minutes' to be exact. Tao is sure the family will get together again, but as the evidence mounts against this happening his anger grows. . He is easily convinced by Matt to take some of this anger out on Mr Petrovic who is, so Matt reckons, a war criminal from Yugoslavia. But when it seems to Tao that the whole world hates him, he is forced to confront Mr Petrovic and he learns things that help him cope with the change