Macy's little sister has wings that are too small, so Eva's class decides to raise money to buy her a flying chair, and half the class opens a bakery, and the other half opens a candy store--but soon competition between the two stores becomes more important than their goal, and Eva needs to convince the other owls that they will collect more money if everyone works as a team.

With the playoffs over, Devin and her seventh-grade friends decide to try out for a soccer travel team, but friendships are threatened because not everyone makes it on to the tough, competitive team, and in the mean time the girls are faced with a crisis--budget cuts threaten to eliminate the soccer program at the elementary school Devin's little sister attends.

Fourteen-year-old Kevin is a hard worker, so when his income is cut off he begins a series of businesses, from poker games to selling snacks, earning money to take a girl to a dance, but his partners soon tire of his methods.

When her crush Brandon reveals that the animal shelter where he volunteers is in danger of being closed, Nikki and her friends enter an ice skating competition to help raise money, an effort that is compromised by an interfering Mackenzie.

Calvin tries to earn money to buy Stella, the babysitter, a present for her sixteenth birthday because he feels guilty for taking advantage of her allergy to cats.

Thirteen-year-old John "Houdini" Smith tries to write a book about what is happening in his life, from his parents' worries about money and his brother in Iraq, to his new understandings of people while he and his friends rake lawns in their East Side Providence, Rhode Island neighborhood.