The darker side of a friendship is portrayed by Jess, a seventeen-year-old who struggles to find the moral courage to remain loyal to her best friend Casey who has been accused of murdering an eight year old girl at summer camp. The town becomes a media circus and the pressure's far too great for Jess to cope. A person doesn't have to do anything important to get recognition anymore; it's enough to know someone who does. Parasitic fame. Casey was more than just a dependable camp counselor dedicated to her little buddies in Cabin Three. She was a brilliant student looking forward to a scholarship and a future career in entomology. Casey wasn't the kind of girl who would be stuck in a town like Galloway the rest of her life. She was really going places. And nobody knew this better than Jess, Casey's best friend. So how could a girl like Casey be arrested for the murder of a young camper under her care... Jess believes her friend is innocent and that the real killer will be caught; but in the meantime, she finds herself the reluctant center of attention. After all, she was also a counselor in Cabin Three. Jess must know something...right? Readers will readily sympathize with Jess, whose life begins to spin out of control. But award-winning author Deborah Ellis brings much more to the character of her complex and troubled narrator, who may not be entirely reliable. As the events surrounding the final weeks of August are slowly unveiled, readers will begin to question the very nature of friendship and how one finds the moral courage to be loyal, no matter what the consequences.
