In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother.

Allegra Shapiro was planning on taking it easy this summer; but then she found out that she had made it to the finals of a prestigious competition for young musicians.

Sixteen-year-old learning-disabled Nick struggles to endure a life in which the other kids make fun of him, he has to take special classes, his date for the prom makes an excuse not to go with him, and he is haunted by the memory of his older sister who drowned while he was watching.