Jodie Jackson is a twelve-year-old girl, who lives with her father above their boat shed in Serpentine Bay, Sydney. She attends her mother's old school and has made a new friend, Sarah Chan, whose mother is a famous TV chef. Sarah has panic attacks and anxiety, and Jodie encourages her to talk to her parents.
Jodie works at her grandmother's New Age shop on Saturdays, and is saving for a school excursion to Fraser Island.
When the school Mother/Daughter lunch is planned, Jodie asks her Nan, because her mother died the previous year. Alicia, the class bully, constantly harasses Jodie about her family situation, her home life and even her schoolwork.
Jodie escapes her problems by sailing her little boat to Crater Cove, where she investigates some old, abandoned shacks. She wants to draw one of them for a project in art class, and happens to discover a homeless university student, Serena. They share their ideas about the after- life, and their spiritual beliefs.
When a bush fire rages towards the shacks, Jodie is afraid that Serena is in danger. She illegally takes her father's runabout, and goes to Crater Cove. Her motor dies, and she is heading for the rocks, but the water police turn up just in time, and luckily, Jodie spots Serena marooned on the rocks. They pick her up and return to Jodie's home, where the police threaten to give Jodie a fine. Serena stays at Jodie's place, and her father promises to talk to the university about getting Serena accommodation.
Jodie goes to pay her deposit for the excursion, and discovers that thirty dollars is missing. She confronts Serena, who confesses that she needed the money for antibiotics for an infected leg that she cut on the oyster shells when she was climbing on the police boat.
When Jodie hands in her colourful sketch of Crater Cove for art class, she realizes it was supposed to be drawn in charcoal. She dreads the humiliation of showing it to the rest of the class.
