The story in “About a boy” takes place in London, the two main characters is Will Freeman and Marcus.

Will is 36 years old, rich and cool. Will care much for his appearance, he ware expensive clothes and has a nice hair cut. Will also think that he is cool, according too a test in a magazine he is “sub-zero”.

Will does not have to work for his money, his father wrote a famous Christmas song so he gets enough money for that.

The other main character in this story is a twelve year old boy, he lives alone with his mother and had just moved from Cambridge to London. Marcus doesn’t have any friends in London, and he is unpopular at school.

Will has everything in life, except a wife and children. In pursuit of that, he decided to join a SPAT (Single parents alone together) group. Will thought that SPAT would be an excellent place too meet single women.

He told the people on the SPAT meeting  that he had a little son called Ned.

At the meeting Will meets Suzie, Suzie  was tall and blond, and that was some qualities  Will was looking for in a woman.

Some days later Will pretended that his ex-wife had gone of whit the car, and that he needed a ride to a picnic whit the SPAT people, he called Suzie and she would come and pick him up. In the car Will met a boy named Marcus, Marcus’s mother was Suzie’s friend so Suzie brought Marcus too the SPAT picnic cause Fiona needed some sleep (Fiona is Marcus’s mother).

Fiona is a 38 year old music therapist, and a single mother.  Fiona is a depressed woman, she hasn’t got much else in life but Marcus and her work.

After the picnic Suzie and Will walked Marcus up too the apartment, when Marcus opened the door he saw his mother laying on the sofa in her own vomit.

Suzie ran to Fiona, she had seen an empty pill bottle, so she started to slap and scream to Fiona. She told Will to go call an ambulance, when the ambulance came they took Fiona with them, Suzie went along. Will and Marcus took Suzie’s car and drove too the hospital.

Marcus slept at Suzie’s place that night, the next morning Suzie went to the hospital to pick up Fiona, Marcus waited at home.

One day after school Markus followed Will too his flat, when Will let Marcus in Marcus son realized that Will didn’t have any children. There where no toys or any other things that could have belonged to a child in his flat, so Will told Marcus the truth about not having a child.

Marcus went to Will after school very often, at first Will didn’t like having him around, but he got used to it. One day Will bought a pair of Adidas sneakers to Marcus, Marcus loved them. But after school the next day Marcus came to Will’s flat barefoot, someone had stolen his new sneakers.

When Marcus came home Fiona saw that he didn’t wear any shoes, he told her that Will had bought him some sneakers and that someone had stolen them. Fiona got really mad at Will because she probably thought that Will was a man that abused young people.

Marcus was told to not see Will any more, and Will was told too not open the door if Marcus rang the bell.

At school some days after Marcus got called too the headmistress office, while he waited on a bench he met Ellie McCrae. Ellie was  famous for being in trouble, she had black lipstick and she was a big Kurt Cobain fan.

They both sat at the on front of  Mrs. Morrison’s office, and Ellie starts to talk to Marcus. She tells him that she is a big Kurt Cobain fan and that he is a famous Manchester United player and Marcus believes her. When he talks to Will later that day he finds out that Kurt Cobain is a singer in Nirvana, a famous rock-group. Later Markus and Ellie become good friends, Marcus falls in love with Ellie, but Ellie sees Markus just as a friend. When some guys stole Marcus’s glasses Ellie punched  one of the down.

Ellie and Marcus met each other at a New Years Eve party that SPAT had arranged, they spent most of the evening together.

Will met a woman named Rachel at the New Years Eve party, she is a single mother with a son named Ali. When Will and Marcus visits Rachel(Markus pretends to be Will’s son), Marcus gets in trouble with Ali. Ali threatens to kill Marcus if he doesn’t get out with his father. Ali later apologizes ,and the whole incident is forgotten.

Some days after Fiona tells Markus that his father fell of  window ledge, and that he want to talk too him. Marcus doesn’t want to talk to his father because he thinks that his father never has been there for him, therefore he gets Ellie to come with him so she could talk to him. The day before Ellie and Marcus goes to Cambridge to see his father, Curt Cobain shoot himself. Ellie is a huge fan of him, so she takes it kind of hard.

On the way too Cambridge the train stops at a small station in  Royston, suddenly Ellie jumps off the train, she run towards a shop window and throws her boot trough the glass. She did that because she thought that the store owner used the picture of Kurt Cobain and his death to sell his records. Because Ellie broke the window they had to go to the police station, they had to call their parents and meet the store owner.