At age 12, Lasse is a tough guy and a bright one. His life is changed when his mother, pregnant at the time, abandons his beloved father. She takes Lasse with her to live with her new paramour, a dentist as authoritarian as Lasse's Elvis Presley-fan butcher dad was easy-going. The dentist has a daughter, too, and she is a jealous schemer. Lasse tries hard to conform, but can a tiger change its stripes?