Darren is a regular teenage kid. He and his friend Steve find out about a Freak Show coming to town and get tickets. Steve and Darren think that it is all a joke until a vampire named Larten Crepsley comes on stage with a very poisonous spider that he makes do tricks. Steve tells Larten he would like to join him and become an apprentice.
Lily Owens is a young girl who lives on the peach farm that her abusive father owns. Rosaleen is a black woman hired by Lily's father to be a stand-in mother for Lily. When Rosaleen and Lily walk into town they are approached by some white men. Rosaleen insults these racists by standing up for her rights. The angry men give her a beating and she ends up in the hospital. Lily's father rescues Lily but not Rosaleen so Lily talks Rosaleen into running away. They end up in a town that Lily believes her mother once lived in.
A story about the friendship that develops between a 12-year-old boy who knows what it's like to be without a family, and a whale confined in a too-small tank at an aquatic park.
