"A mysterious stranger arrives at a boy's rundown Alabama farm home, just as a dangerous situation is unfolding for the twelve-year-old and his widowed mother"--

Real estate agent Maggie Fortenberry works at Red Mountain Reality, that has been going downhill since the death of its founder, comes up with a plan to save the business. The rival of their company Babs is unscrupulous real estate agent who hates Maggie and is determined to put her out of business.

Twelve-year-old Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow is the happiest color, she knows a healthy male giraffe weighs about 3,000 pounds, and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest living rodent. She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly eighteen months. But there are things Elvis doesn't yet know--like how to keep her sister Lizzie from poisoning...