On her first day at her new school, Penelope --- Peppi --- Torres trips into a quiet boy in the hall, Jaime Thompson, and the mean kids start calling her the "nerder girlfriend." How does she handle this crisis? By shoving poor Jaime and running away! After joining the art club, Peppi still can't help feeling ashamed about the way she treated Jaime. Things are already awkward enough between the two, but to make matters worse, he's a member of her own club's archrivals --- the science club! And when the two clubs go to war, Peppi realizes that sometimes you have to break the rules to survive middle school!