Twelve-year-old Ellie Tremont is b-o-r-e-d, bored, and she wishes something, anything, would happen. So when 14-year-old Tommy Bowers moves in next door, with his lanky swagger and his troubled past, Ellie knows her summer is about to get interesting. When Tommy suggests they start a camp for the kids on their street under their elderly neighborsтАЩ(the WatsonsтАЩ) porch, Ellie quickly agrees to that, and everything else Tommy suggests. And when Tommy gives her a diamond necklace that he says he bought, sheтАЩs suspicious, though smitten. But by the time her parents forbid her from seeing him, sheтАЩs given him her heart. Soon, though, Tommy goes too far and even Ellie isnтАЩt sure what to make of him.