Scags at 7

It is 1958, Skokie, IL. Seven-year old Claudia Harper Morgenstern, or Scags her proud name of choice begins the summer between second and third grade full of excitement and dread. Two months of no school is keen-o, but her best friend, Julia, will be at summer camp for weeks. Scags makes a new friend in Julia s absence, Davy, a hard talking nine-year old who tries his best to teach young Scags everything he knows, especially the things she shouldn t. But Scags soon has other things to distract her from missing Julia: something is wrong with Pops. He doesn t let her walk on the ceiling and drive the car anymore and he s taken up bowling his empty beer bottles into the fireplace. Mama tries to hold him together, while struggling to continue her life as a suburban lady of leisure, with help from Odessa, the maid who comes in from the South Side of Chicago. Everyone attempts to keep things in order, but what becomes clear to all is that Pops may not make it through the heat of the summer in one piece.