Martin Kelso's comfortable world starts to change at the age of 11. Girls get under his skin in ways he never noticed before. His cousin Evie, who used to be Marty's closest confidante, has grown up into a stranger, mysterious and unpredictable. Marty and his best friends once inhabited fantasy worlds of their own making, where the heroes always won the day. But now, as neighborhood kids are attacked on their walk to school, they find themselves wanting to play a new game that better prepares them for real life. As life changes quickly and Marty feels less secure with himself, the difference between games and reality, friend and foe, and right from wrong becomes much more difficult to distinguish.