10-year-old Lucy is basically too good for this world. She is well-behaved, kind and perfect in every situation. Her best friend Rima and she herself want to make the world a little better with every little action. But then disaster threatens: Lucy’s parents run an ice cream parlor, and when the expensive ice cream machine breaks down, the parlor is threatened with closure. Lucy wants to prevent this at all costs. However, after much deliberation, she sees only one way to get money quickly: a bank robbery. To prepare for her big coup, she makes a deal with the class gangster Tristan. Under the code name “Operation Lucyfer”, he is supposed to teach her how to be mean and ruthless. So Lucy gets tutored in stealing, lying, cheating and blackmailing – and proves to be an amazingly docile student. Lucy barely recognizes herself. Her transformation from nerd to crook, however, causes many problems.
The door has been closed for many weeks. A teenager has locked himself in - shutting out a helpless father, mother and sister. In Japan, youths like him have already been given a name: Hikikomori (the secluded). The phenomenon is also beginning to spread throughout the Western world. This is all the family has been able to find out. All they can do is stand in front of the locked door and ask, beg, implore, throw tantrums, despair, accuse, ignore and hope. All the while, the door increasingly becomes a mirror of their own lives.
A nameless man receives phone calls intended for someone else and ends up pretending to be that person, while a female character rebels against her author.
