Four teen-agers who have desperately tried to conceal their responsibility for a hit-and-run accident are pursued by a mystery figure seeking revenge.

Rusty-James wants to be as tough a teen as his older brother, Motorcycle Boy, who has always helped him out of tough spots. But one day, when Rusty-James faces danger, Motorcycle Boy is not around.

"No one ever really paid close attention to the faces of the missing children on the milk cartons. But as Janie Johnson glanced at the face of the ordinary little girl with her hair in tight pigtails, wearing a dress with a narrow white collar--a three-year-old who had been kidnapped twelve years before from a shopping mall in New Jersey--she felt overcome with shock. She recognized that little girl--it was she. How could it possibly be true? Janie...

The daily class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, abortion, organized religion, suicide and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior's attempt to answer a friend's dramatic cry for help.

Lamed and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.

Young Katy Thatcher, the daughter of the town doctor, becomes friends with Jacob, a teenager who is "touched in the head," which allows her to understand what really happened when the unwanted infant of Jacob's sister is found dead.