There are discos at school several times a year, but the Valentine's Day disco is the one that everyone talks about. They only sell the tickets in pairs. You have to ask someone, or be asked by someone before you can go. Torture.

But it won't be torture if Indigo Casson's special plan for the Valentine's Day disco works. Torture is in the cards for Saffy, though, when her first boyfriend decides to take her on an unusual date to a very, very dark graveyard. At least he didn't leave her on a moor with Rose -- yet.

IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL FOR THE START OF A NEW TERM, AND THE ECCENTRIC CASSONS ARE UP TO THEIR OLD TRICKS

Indigo, having just recovered from a bout of mononucleosis, must return to school after missing an entire semester. Only his younger sister and loyal sidekick, Rose, knows why he's dreading it so much. As it turns out, the school bullies are eagerly awaiting Indigo's return so that they can pick up where they left off -- flushing his head in the toilet. But Indigo hasn't counted on meeting Tom, an American student who is staying with his grandmother in England for the year. With...

Feisty Rose takes center stage as the highly original Casson family faces a long, hot summer.

As usual, things are a bit chaotic. Eldest daughter Caddy is engaged to darling Michael, and she's not altogether sure she likes it. Saffy and Sarah are on a mission to find Saffy's biological father (while cultivating hearts of stone). Indigo is cautiously beginning a friendship with a reformed bully, who desperately wants to feel like part of the Casson family. Rose, while dreadfully missing Tom (whom none of them have heard from), enters into a life of petty crime, shoplifting small...

Rose knows that nothing stays the same forever.

Still, it's hard to watch her sisters and brother growing up and moving so far ahead of her. Caddy is back, but she's not living at home. And worse -- she's broken up with Darling Michael. Saffy and Indigo are so busy, they are seldom home. With her father in London and her mother painting in the shed, Rose is often alone in the house.

Maybe that's why she agrees to her new friend Molly's crazy scheme. At least it seems crazy when Rose finds herself locked in the zoo at night with a roaring tiger. Maybe she should...