The town of Oak Grove was so far away from the ocean that most people who lived there had never seen a seagull or listened to the whisper of a pink shell. They certainly hadn't heard the way the sea can call to you on a hot July day when wave after wave beckons and the water is endless and clear.

As a matter of fact, people in Oak Grove dreaded water. This was a town with a history of terrible flooding. Fifteen years earlier, the spring that fed Penman's Creek overflowed, leaving Oak Grove awash so that people had to clamor onto their roofs. When the floodwaters finally receded, the creek was dammed up, and folks went overboard to protect Oak Grove. The town council ordered the public swimming pool drained; lawn watering was limited to an hour a day, showers to ten minutes long. Drier was better in Oak Grove, or so people said. And the weather appeared to cooperate. The only thing that seemed endless here was the perfect blue sky that was the same day after day, without the slightest hint of rain or the hope of a stray cloud passing by.

Most residents of Oak Grove were grateful for its climate. But not Martha Glimmer. As far as Martha was concerned, this was the worst year of her life. Martha hated Oak Grove, where there was nothing better to do on a brilliant spring day than sit on the roof of her father's garage with her two best friends, Trevor and Eli McGill, and throw rocks at the line of tin cans they'd arranged down below.

Martha hated the fact that it never rained in Oak Grove; she hated the way the grass grew so dry, it creaked when you walked on it; and she hated Hildy Swoon, a neighbor who brought casseroles over almost every night and tried to convince Martha's father that he should start a new life. Most of all, Martha hated people who pitied a girl like herself, who'd lost her mother the year before, at such a tender age. While Martha was at it, she hated being thirteen, a number that was clearly unlucky, at least for her, for this was the year when she'd grown seven inches; her legs were now so long and gawky, she often tripped over her own feet.

Martha's friend, Trevor McGill, completely disagreed; he enjoyed being thirteen. He had grown taller as well, one of the few boys their age who was the same height as Martha. But whereas Martha was uncomfortable with her size, Trevor couldn't be happier with his. As for Trevor's brother, Eli, at eleven, he was at an age when anything older was preferable, and could hardly wait to grow up.

Both the McGill brothers had dark hair and sea-green eyes, and they certainly weren't like anyone else in town. It wasn't anything obvious that set the boys apart, but when you considered some of their odder traits, the little things added up. From the time the boys were toddlers there had been gossip about them. Susie Lawrence, who worked at the Sweet Shoppe, confided that the boys threw away any candy their mother bought them, tossing out jelly beans and chocolate bars alike, and that wasn't very normal, was it? Their old baby-sitter, Gretchen Hardy, whispered that Trevor and Eli had refused to nap unless she brought them into the kitchen. They'd cry and bellow like walruses until Gretchen turned on the tap full blast, and then, instantly, the sound of running water lulled them to sleep.

As the boys grew older, they grew stranger as well, or so people said, especially those folks who enjoyed gossip far more than they enjoyed their neighbors' good fortune. But who could blame people for discussing how odd it was that Eli McGill had been found splashing around in a bathtub — thankfully, with all his clothes on — at Annamaria Chamberlain's tenth birthday party while everyone else devoured cake and ice cream. Or how unnerving it was when Trevor fixed people with his pale green eyes, staring until even the most landlocked citizens found themselves dreaming of running off to sea with the wind at their backs and everything else in their lives just a memory.