Things are fairly normal in Hard Pan, population forty-three. But to Lucky, fairly normal means fairly boring, and she’s restless. Just in the nick of time, she meets a potential new best friend named Paloma, who happens to be visiting Hard Pan with her uncle, a geologist. And before she knows it, Lucky gets stuck in a well, meets up with a wild burro, discards something she didn’t know was precious, does something unexpectedly cruel, and learns a couple of the secrets of the universe.