With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students...

"Would-be detectives Trevor, Nick and Robyn are hot on the trail of a sandwich thief when they learn that more than food has been going missing at school. A valuable hockey book has been stolen from the library, and the kids worry that the librarian might lose her job if it isn't found. Who would steal a hockey book? Could it be Robyn's arch-nemesis and hockey enthusiast Clay? Or could it be Ms. Thorson, the Oiler fan teacher? The kids are determined...

The whole Benton Bluff Junior High band is at band camp, and when things start to go missing everybody blames Zac, the class clown--but when Zac's saxophone disappears he suspects that it is someone in another group trying to sabotage Benton Bluff, and sets out to uncover the culprit.

Ella Mentry School's security guard proves overzealous in his pursuit of a peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich thief.