Pim lives with his ex-beauty queen, single mother in a small town on the Belgian coast. An introverted boy, Pim brightens up his days with drawing and dreaming up fantasy lives. He expresses his emerging desires through a secret collection of "borrowed" objects that he keeps in a shoebox. With teenage years comes sexual awareness and he now draws and dreams of Gino, the older boy next door, his motorcycling hero. But this first love seems likely to end in disappointment. Pim’s mother, Yvette, has dreams of her own. Tired of unwanted suitors and bored with small town life, she longs to leave everything behind and to see the world. Pim and Yvette’s dreams collide when handsome Zoltan arrives in town with the fun-fair and becomes their new lodger.