Enduring days of avoiding bullies and reading sci-fi books, a misfit former foster kid bonds with a scruffy abandoned dog and a librarian's daughter before confronting the dual challenges of his adoptive mother's death and his new friend's returning cancer. By the award-winning author of Burning Blue. Simultaneous eBook., Seventh-grader Ben, always an outsider, is led into a deep friendship with Halley, who is being treated for cancer, by the special dog he and his adoptive mother take in.