A middle-aged man around fifty, with his clothes all worn out and a black grimy jacket, entered the room. He looked like a foreigner. He kept looking around him like he was lost. I couldn't recall having seen him in the school before. "Good morning, are you Raisa's father," I asked him hastily. "No, I'm her uncle..." he offered hesitantly. "As of last night, Raisa is missing," he added in a whispering voice, his eyes constantly starring the floor. "Please come in to my office," I told him stunned. "I notified you people since yesterday afternoon that Raisa skipped the last two hours of school. I called her mom and let her know. Weren't you worried?" I couldn't help my judgmental tone. My astonishment had been turned into full-blown anger. "We were busy, we couldn't deal with it," he answered in a sheared tone. I detected a hint of guilt in his words. Who wouldn't feel guilty if he had been neglectful enough to lose his child? "You couldn't? And what exactly are you doing here now?"....A social worker can decipher the dangerous signs at once: neglect of a minor, social deprivation, suspicious companions, loneliness. And then comes an explosion, violent and unstoppable. The child departs from the home in search of a better future, that most of the times never comes. Most, if not all, of the times, it brings hardships and suffering both to the kid and his parents. This book deals with the anxious quest of the young - adolescent to belong to a group, to be socially acceptable, even if they have to sacrifice all their inhibitions on the altar of social integration. The protagonists-teenagers are discovering the hard world that surrounds them, perceiving its dangers and try coping with the difficulties of adulthood. Most of the time they are helpless, alone, with dubious moral companions and fall into the trap of drugs. Sometimes they return back home to even harsher conditions and angry - punishable parents. This is the story of Raisa and Nicholas, but also the story of so many teenagers all around us.T
