From a rotten teacher to traitorous friends and battling parents, Jackie feels like she is carrying the world on her eleven-year-old shoulders. After the last day of an awful school year, she can't wait to get away with her cousin, Tommy, and their grandparents for a Memorial Day weekend at a riverside resort. She looks forward to music, swimming, playing until she can't stand up, and sleeping under the stars.

Yet, this is not what life has in store. After a narrow escape from a gang of bullies, Jackie and her cousin find themselves on a wild, unintended boat ride down the Brazos and end up spending the night in a tree. Seeking help, Jackie is saved from stepping on a giant rattlesnake by a brooding, scar faced giant she calls Tarzan Charlie. He reluctantly takes the two children under his wing and when they become hungry he shows them how to live off the land. Then, when they encounter a criminal meth gang, it is Charlie who brings them safely home.

Even so, coming home is not what Jackie expected. Her adventures have changed her and almost losing the two cousins has changed things in the family. Caught in a riot of confused emotions, Jackie finds herself no longer a child but not sure how to be a woman. Even so, her adventures have given her a new confidence in herself, and when school begins in the fall, she discovers she has left her treacherous friends far behind.