After losing her father and all their possessions in a hurricane, nine-year-old Ellie and her mother move to a small apartment on a horse farm in Virginia, where her new classmates think that she lives in a mansion and is a princess.

High-school seniors Kimberly Landis-Lilley and Teddy Lin have been together since kindergarten, but then someone starts a rumor that they have broken up, and suddenly the whole William Henry Harrison High School is taking sides, somebody is putting up posters supporting Kim and criticizing Teddy, there are incidents of artistic vandalism, people are talking about having separate proms, and even teachers and parents are getting involved--and nobody...

All kinds of embarrassing rumors are swirling around TJ's class and mostly he thinks they are pretty funny, until he becomes the target of the gossip--then he needs to find out who started the rumors, and why.