Coming of age has been a playful and intriguing experience for Jeremy Wilcamp and Stevie Stockton. Even within the confines of a rigid educational system, Jeremy and Stevie are having fun. But their happy advance into adolescence is about to be halted when they are confronted by bullies. One day is going to change everything when six kids scheme to bully, molest and humiliate these two best friends.
Jeremy and Stevie are fourteen-year-old, eighth grade students at a Catholic grammar school in 1958. They have very different family dynamics. Steve's parents cherish him, while Jeremy's mother resents him because he wasn't the daughter she always wanted. When Brad Maddox, the class bully, picks on Jeremy and taunts him in the boy's bathroom at school, Steve jumps to Jeremy's defense and gives Brad the beating of his life in front of half the boys in the class. Now, Steve and Jeremy are facing an avalanche of problems. Sister Sullpicia, the school principal, is all over them about the fight and threatening to intervene in Jeremy's family where she senses conflict between Jeremy and his parents. Brad and five of his high school buddies are going to gang up on Steve and Jeremy at an upcoming initiation event.
This is a heartwarming and heartrending tale in which the quiet complacence of every character with their lives and their beliefs is going to be shattered by an unstoppable progression of events.
