Fifteen-year-old Cuss Brewster is not a criminal. Well, maybe a slight criminal in the state of New York where he accidentally burns down his neighbor s barn. It s not his first fire-related mishap, so a judge tells Cuss, Behave for the next six months, or you ll go to jail. But for Cuss, behaving is a lot harder than it seems. Trouble hounds him. He rescues children from a church fire, only to have the authorities accuse him of starting the fire. While working at a landscaping job, he forgets to follow instructions and winds ups smashing a client s bay window. The grumpy client threatens to sue. Then, a mere two weeks before his probation hearing, Cuss confuses the brake and gas pedals on someone s vintage Porsche and crashes the car through garage doors. Cuss can almost taste prison food .