Eleven-year-old Larch has depended on her own rules to help her cope with the life she and her mother share in a trailer in a small Ohio town, but her rules do not help her deal with a rat-catching dog, her best friend's crush, and the truth she learns about her father's death.

Seventh-grader John Salt, a budding animal behaviorist, and his best friend's sister become unlikely allies in an attempt to protect a pack of dragons from an unscrupulous cosmetics researcher.