Claudia Kincaid and her brother run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in order to teach their parents a lesson and embark upon a mystery involving a priceless work of art and the strange old woman who sold the piece to the museum.
Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 12-year-old Claudia strives to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.
Spending the summer in Florida with her stepfather's sister who operates a "meals-on-wheels" van, twelve-year-old Chlo and her aunt become involved in a controversy surrounding the wearing of T-back bathing suits.
