Thirteen-year-old Sal, traveling with her grandparents from Ohio to Idaho in search of her missing mother, entertains them with the story of her friend Phoebe whose mother also left, unwittingly revealing the truth about her own relationship with her mom.

While preparing for a role in the school play, twelve-year-old Leo finds an autobiography that his father wrote as a teenager and ponders the ways people change as they grow up. Includes the text for the play, "Rumpopo's Porch."