Jake Semple is a scary kid. Word has it that he burned down his old school and then was kicked out of every other school in his home state. Only weeks into September, the middle school in Traybridge, North Carolina, has thrown him out too.
Great changes are in store for the highly creative and somewhat eccentric Applewhite family when money problems force them to open a summer camp for gifted children, who almost immediately begin to rebel, while a mysterious interloper watches from the woods.