In 1955, Woodrow and his cousin Gypsy befriend a new girl in their seventh grade class in rural Virginia, and the three of them set off to find Woodrow's missing mother, encountering unlikely and intriguing coincidences along the way.
When Bea and her family are transported aboard an underwater bus to a strange land, her younger brother Theo is lost during the voyage, and somehow it falls to Bea to find out what has become of him.