Ahmad Shah steals apples with cousins under the moonlight and runs from the schoolteacher. He changes oil in a repair shop, molds birds from clay, and makes dolls to act out weddings. He studies how clothes are sewn, how shoes are mended, and how women stir halwa for Eid.

He watches a man’s skull burst open on the street.

Selling poplar trees behind his family’s back, Ahmad Shah finds the means to leave for Kabul.