Twelve-year-old Natalia Rose Baleine Gallagher dreams of seeing whales on the beach near her new home, and is consumed with the prospect that her mother who abandoned her as a child loves and misses her, and wants Nat to find her.

When you move somewhere new, you get to be someone new. I was ready. Sixth-grader Kammie Summers's plan to be one of the popular girls at school hasn't gone the way she hoped. She's fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into the Girls' club. Now she's trapped in the dark, counting the hours, hoping to be rescued. (The Girls have gone for help, haven't they?) As the hours go by, Kammie's real-life trouble mixes with memories of the...

Told from two viewpoints, Kit has an odd, stress-induced reaction when she witnesses her best friend's public humiliation, and the secrets both girls keep may tear them apart.