It's 1959 and Winnie's family is moving to rural Minnesota. Are there even phones there? How will she keep up with her group of best friends, the Starlings? Besides, something isn't right. Her parents are keeping secrets, and Winnie is under strict orders to "keep family matters private." In Minnesota, Winnie finds out that her father's new job requires her family to live on the grounds of a mental institution--"a prison for freaks," Winnie concludes. The Bridgewater State Hospital is near an Indian reservation and surrounded by small farms. It's only a mile from her new school, but that mile brings her into a different world. At school Winnie is ridiculed not only as the new kid but as the girl who lives at the local nuthouse. At first the only thing Winnie thinks about is how to get back to her friends and her "real" life in Chicago, but eventually she is swept up in a world full of people and events that cause her to question her former life and then to see everything in a new light--her parents, the Starlings, her new friends, and herself.