A powerful and suspenseful novel from an award-winning author. Something happened on Wednesday, 25 November, 2.43 p.m. to cause Branwell Zamborska to become mute. All anyone knows is that he called the emergency services because his baby sister, Nikki, had stopped breathing, and from then he has been unable to speak. The au pair reveals that Branwell had dropped Nikki and shaken her. Branwell is .

More than anything in the world, eleven-year-old Amedeo Kaplan wants to discover something - a treasure that no one realizes is missing until he finds it. He also wants to discover a true friend he can share things with.

Margaret Rose begins her twelfth summer with a miserable experience at camp, from which she is rescued by her beloved, eccentric European uncles. Little does she know that her uncles need rescuing themselves from a tyrannical city council determined to tear down their life's work.

Noah, Nadia, Ethan and Julian each have a story to tell about how they became friends: Noah was best man at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather; Nadia saved a nest of baby turtles; Ethan recounts how he could not let Julian face disaster. And Julian? He valued something important in himself and saw it in the other three.

Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.