Twelve year old Edgar, nicknamed 'Sweetie' has one, all consuming passion: flowers and plants. His parents, both of them rich film producers, consider him neurotic. This irritates Sweetie intensely, and he rebels against all his parents' attempts to reeducate him. Hugues, the authoritarian father, with whom Sweetie has not been on speaking terms for some time now, has given up on his son. Sweetie's superficial mother Lolly still lets her son work in the garden of the family villa, however, under the supervision of their gardener Lucas. Everything changes when Sweetie's parents suddenly decide to adopt a five year old Peruvian orphan named Anibal. Sweetie begins by ignoring the boy as best he can, but the boy has a problem that throws Sweetie off balance: he has severe asthma attacks, and the family physician thinks they may be psychosomatic. This arouses Sweetie's protective instincts. Anibal repays Sweetie's kindness to him with love and deep admiration, but this is totally lost on the parents. While Sweetie starts wondering whether or not to kill himself so that Anibal can have his lungs, the father resorts to his old plan of sending Sweetie away to a boarding school. Sweetie and Anibal promptly run away, get picked up by the police, and end up in front of a sympathetic woman magistrate - who goes against the wishes of Sweetie's father, and allows the two boys to attend the same school.