Martina is fourteen and doesn’t know what to do: she lives with her mother but the latter has her own problems with her chaotic lifestyle and also another small child. Thus Martina takes to the streets of the town’s peripheries where, like her contemporaries, she survives by committing minor acts of fraud and theft. Her best friend is the slightly older Sciu who adores her and obeys her every command. He would do anything to get her to love him. Martina instinctively yearns for love but her mother’s example scares her. When she gets in trouble with the law, the girl is taken under the wing of social worker Giovanni and, soon afterwards, also the police commissioner Fiametta, entrusted with her case. Both want to help Martina but they come up against her distrust and distaste for the advice of adult. The commissioner, herself from a poor background, understands the girl but at the critical moment she is swayed by her commitment to the law.