Jill Hale is a wise-cracking Army brat who has never lived in one place longer than two years. After losing her mother to breast cancer during her seventh grade year, Jill is now in eighth grade and convinced no one would miss her if she were beamed up by a bunch of green aliens hovering in a spaceship above the gym in a boiling blue haze. No one but her best friend Susan, a brainy neurotic overachiever who lugs a 50-pound backpack to every class for fear of not having enough paper clips.

At Wildwood Middle School in the Missouri Ozarks, Jill earns the nickname of Wardrobe Lady because that's the only job left for her in the eighth grade Honor Choir's spring musical version of Tom Sawyer. All the important roles have gone to those who have been groomed for three years to be the stars of the show, girls like beautiful blonde Emily York, who plays Becky Thatcher and takes joy in making Jill's life miserable whenever Ryan Esposito, the coolest boy in eighth grade, is around. Ryan plays Tom and seems to be "perfect" as far as Jill can see.

With only one week before the big show, Jill's life turns upside down, putting her on a collision course with two robbers, a poisonous snake, and the biggest bully in school. Can Jill survive when her life is threatened, and face her own insecurities as the curtain rises on the opening show? And how will the coolest boy in eighth grade feel about her when the curtain falls?