Pim lives in a run-down house in a dead-end street somewhere on the Flanders coast, together with his mother Yvette Bulteel. Life here smells of cold French fries, cheap cigarettes, vermouth and stale beer. As a kid, Pim dreams of a better life, imagining princesses and beauty queens. But when Pim turns sixteen, he begins dreaming of Gino, the handsome boy next door, instead.
Sammy Raes, a nice, naive law-freshman from a simple family, dies in a form of hazing known as the 'flying carpet'. The father of the arrogant fraternity president Guy Bogaerts who ordered this reckless procedure abuses his connections to prevent a judicial homicide conviction, while the college authorities prefer to avoid a scandal in the press. However Sammy's freshmen friends Tom Smits and Denn