When fourteen-year-old Thea’s family moved to the small community of Lake Pearl, she thought her life couldn’t get any worse. No friends, no movies, no malls … Then, on the first day of school the bus is hijacked and the kids, from first to eighth grades, are kidnapped, driven into the desert and abandoned. There, with thirty-five kids she hardly knows, Thea learns lessons in courage and friendship. Sometimes together, often at odds, the children use their wits and skills in a struggle to survive.