Sixth-grader Clint Boone knows that change is inevitable, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. Ever since he lost his parents in a car crash five years ago, he worries about everything. At the top of his list of worries: his first day of middle school at a new school-meaning the likelihood of eating alone, being teased about his southern accent, or getting his head dunked down a toilet just increased. Clint's only constants are his sweet tea-drinking, pea-shelling grandparents, who are always there when he needs them.

However, only a day into an already troubling school year, Clint's grandparents soon welcome seven-year-old Rhett, a distant relative, into their home. Now Clint has a rambunctious new sibling that he never asked for-one who shakes up his relationship with Grandma and Grandpa, and requires much more of their attention than he likes. As he struggles to adjust to Rhett, a new school, and a sixth-grade bully, Clint begins to learn that life's curveballs may not be such a bad thing...until the curveball that upends Clint's entire world.