Twelve-year-old Cass meets her new African-American neighbor, Jemmie, and despite their families' prejudices, they build a strong friendship around their mutual talent for running and a pact to read Jane Eyre.
Fisher Brown, a sixteen-year-old overachiever, is on the verge of academic burnout when he impulsively decides to stop cramming for the SATs for one weekend and accompany his neighbor to an out of town job repairing a roof.
Twelve-year-old Rox and her grandmother Mimi sell at a flea market every weekend to supplement the family's only income, that of construction worker and college student, cousin John Martin.
Middle schooler Justin Riggs struggles to cope with major family problems, including a brother who might be heading for the Persian Gulf, but finds an escape in piano lessons and the dream of a romance with a popular girl.
Anna, a twelve year old girl with strong survival instincts, tries to adjust to life in a Florida foster home in a strange neighborhood with an overly tidy single woman and Eb, another foster child who is not at all sure he wants to stay there.
