Everything's perfect at Rosemary Acres. All the streets are named after spices. The hedges and lawns are perfectly trimmed. The townhouses are all the same color.
For T.R. and his older brother Danny, things are too perfect. What are they going to find to do out here? They'd much rather still be living in Chicago with their aunt Cis, but their mom insisted that the move would be good, another step forward after her divorce from the boys' father.
Since that divorce Danny has tried his best to be the man of the family and T.R. often feels like Danny's dog -- trotting after him, hoping to be included but, at the same time, watching over him. Ever since Danny turned twelve he seems different to ten-year-old T.R. That makes T.R. want to keep an eye on Danny all the more.
Everything Danny and TR find to do at Rosemary Acres seems to be against the rules -- rules that not only they but their moody, volatile new friend Paul Brenimer, find more and more irksome, until Paul seems almost at the breaking point. Will he get Danny into trouble, too? How can faithful T.R. protect him against that?