Left in charge of the family when his father leaves their South Carolina home to fight in the Revolutionary War, thirteen year-old Joey Kershaw finds all his resources tested when General Cornwallis comes to town and chooses the Kershaw house as his headquarters.

Long ago in Nowhere, Texas, Mama and Papa Upagainstit agree to take in the wild baby their five children find in a passing tumbleweed, despite the objections of the one who used to be "the littlest-of-all girl."

After participating in a cruel prank on a classmate, fourteen-year-old Robin and her mother move to Oklahoma, where Robin is mistaken for the substitute principal and receives a new perspective on bullying.