On May 18, 1980, eleven-year-old Jessie Marlowe and her best friends, Eddie and Sam, are in a forest near Mount St. Helens when the months of wondering whether the volcano will erupt are finally answered--all three are badly burned, but it is up to Jessie to protect the boys as best she can and hope that somebody comes to rescue them.

Relates the story of a boy who survives the deadliest disaster in American history--the hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killing eight thousand people--and heads back into the treacherous waters to help save his neighbors.