Seventh grader Alice decides that the only way to stave off personal and social disasters is to be part of the crowd, especially the "in" crowd, no matter how boring and, potentially, difficult.
Alice fills the summer before her junior year of high school with a job at the mall, hanging out with her friends, and wishing she had a bigger family.
While planning a wedding as part of an assignment for her eighth-grade health class, Alice thinks about her father's and older brother's love lives and learns that you cannot prepare for all of life's decisions.
Eleven-year-old, motherless Alice decides she needs a gorgeous role model who does everything right; and when placed in homely Mrs. Plotkin's class she is greatly disappointed until she discovers it's what people are inside that counts.
During Daniel's summer visit with his grandmother in York County, Pennsylvania, characters and events from his visit to York, England, appear and reappear in mysterious ways.
Ten-year-old Billie, a Seminole Indian, is caught between the cultures when his family moves away from the Florida Everglades and nearer the white man's civilization.
Continues the adventures of Marco, Polo, and other members of the Club of Mysteries as they care for Carlotta's kittens and search for a home for them.
