Chip Martin s life is going well his biggest problem so far this year has been deciding whether he ll try out for soccer or baseball in seventh grade. But now everything is beginning to fragment, and he s not sure how the pieces will fit back together. His brother Justin s away at college and his sister Kate is busy with her high school activities. His single mom s lifelong friendship with Booker Wilson has suddenly taken a romantic turn, and now his best friend Luther, who may have to move away, won t speak to him. Even worse, Chip has to face the possibility of being uprooted himself.

Chip s feelings of dislocation are compounded by the problems of the kids he meets at the community center, refugees left homeless in the aftermath of a recent hurricane along the Florida Panhandle. Feeling friendless and alone, Chip explores the marshy woods behind an abandoned farm, where he discovers something unbelievable a family of Florida panthers that has been driven out of their home in the Everglades and is now dangerously close to human settlement. Chip is alarmed when he hears that the last few acres of the woods are to be cleared to make way for a meat-packing plant. When he tries to protect the panthers, he learns that he has more friends than he thought, and they all want the same thing to find a safe home for the wild animals. And if they re lucky, a safe place for themselves, too.