Mike Says Goodbye!

Mike is ten years old and has leukaemia. He has been in hospital for many months. Now his condition has stabilised and the boy can actually be released just before Christmas. But his mother does not come to take him home. There is a woman from social services instead, who informs Mike he is to be placed in a foster family. The reason: his mother is an alcoholic and therefore not in a position to care for her son. Although Mike proves that he can clean, take his medicine regularly and even cook for himself, the youth welfare office insists. Now the clever boy has to come up with something to be allowed to spend Christmas at home. Jeroen, his neighbour in the next bed, helps him. First, the two boys secretly go to the hospital psychiatric ward and study the behaviour of its patients. When the potential foster parents come to visit him, Mike puts on a veritable show to dissuade them from their purpose. With success, the couple refrains from the prospective foster son. But the strict social services officer does not give up and finds Mike a place in a children’s home, where the desperate boy does not want to end up at all. So he runs off secretly at night - hoping to get support from his mother.