Life is complicated enough for thirteen-year-old Mic Parsons without living on Bixby Court, the weirdest street in America. For one thing, he has to pass math so his parents will let him play baseball in the spring. And there's his locker, right between Godzilla Girl and Julia Patterson, who keeps slipping him love notes...and Freemont, who seems to have changed into someone Mic hardly recognizes as his best friend.

The weirdest thing on Bixby Court, though, has got to be Mic's deaf-blind older sister, Stephanie, clomping around the house, touching everybody and everything. Mic hardly remembers when they used to have long fingerspelled conversations in the middle of the night, when they would play flashlight tag until Stephanie's gulp-laughs gave them away.

Then Vern Chortle, aka "Nerd Boy," moves to Bixby Court. With his 382-pair sock collection, laminated maps, and beeping watch, he's the last person Mic wants as his shadow.

Almost against his will, however, Mic finds himself spending more and more time at Vern's house. And as Mic lets himself admit to liking Vern, he also gradually realizes that Stephanie understands him in a way no one else can...and, surprisingly, might even be able to help put him back on the ball field again -- just like normal.