When Allie Finkle turns 10 years old, her parents announce that they are moving her and her brothers from their suburban split-level into an ancient Victorian in town.

Allie's not at all happy about having to give up her pretty pink wall-to-wall carpeting for creaky floorboards and creepy secret passageways - not to mention leaving her modern, state-of-the-art suburban school for a rundown, old-fashioned school in the city, populated not, as her old school was, with popular suburban kids, but creative city types.

With a room she's half-scared to go into, the burden of being "the new girl," and her old friends all a half-hour car ride away, how will Allie ever learn to fit in?