After visiting his mother in prison on his seventh birthday, Raymond wishes it were his ninth birthday when Mama has promised to be home with his dad and him.
Worried that his mother will send his beloved grandfather to a nursing home "for his own good, " Jesse and some of his eighth-grade classmates accompany Pappy into the mountains near their small California town to look for the tiger tracks he claims to have seen.
Frankie, the neighborhood bully and his gang, are out to get Martin Luna and he doesn't know where to turn or who he can trust, so he makes a desperate decision that may destroy him.