With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...

As Sky Hawkins, a were-dragon, faces her first heist she discovers secrets about her missing mother, the true reason her boyfriend broke up with her, and the valuable jewel that could restore her family's wealth and rank.