Emily Rankin is a normal sixteen-year-old girl, the daughter of orange ranchers in rural Visalia, California. She is a cheerleader and A student, and her boyfriend is the star center for the basketball team. She also has a new history teacher, Dr. Connell McKenzie, who is challenging Emily to think for herself. To think, for example, about the fact that the president has been amassing troops in the Persian Gulf, and that war is imminent—--but not inevitable. The year is 1990. As a rare and devastating chill threatens to wipe out her family'’s entire orange crop and the rest of the Central Valley'’s economy with it, Emily must make a choice: to stand up for her values and risk losing her friends—--her boyfriend included--—or to keep the peace by not speaking out against the war.