Thirteen-year-old Robert "Qwerty" Stevens uses the time machine he finds in his back yard to visit Thomas Edison's workshop in 1879, and there helps develop the electric light bulb, but then needs his sister's help to return to his own time.
Summer vacation in their small Maine town does not look too promising until twelve-year-old Gina and four of her friends make a pact to become millionaires before school starts in September.
After foiling a terrorist hijacking aboard their airplane, fourteen-year-old Jimmy, his younger sister, and two skateboarding friends crash-land the plane and try to survive in a forest wilderness until help arrives.
On a cross-country vacation with their parents, twins Coke and Pepsi, soon to be thirteen, fend off strange assassins as they try to come to terms with their being part of a top-secret government organization known as The Genius Files.
On his way to lacrosse tryouts, the president of the PTA asks Trip Dinkelman to help her with the book fair, resulting in Trip sustaining a head injury which causes him temporary amnesia and makes for an interesting journey home.
