Nadine has rules for surviving as the new kid: Keep your head down. Mind your own business. And don’t stick your neck out for anyone. Especially not for Francis Pepper, the boy getting picked on by everyone in school. Nadine just wants to get through the rest of the year without any trouble. She knows that once her mom is out of rehab, it’ll be back to the unpredictable in Chicago.

But when she’s paired with Francis for a project about Centralia, her new hometown, she’s drawn to his story. Francis was born the exact day that a tornado, the Great Tornado of the New Millennium (GTNM), destroyed the area. The cyclone even killed his mom. Then Nadine finds a mysterious book that contains instructions for channeling weather. Before she can blink, she and Francis are caught in the swirling whispers and lies that surround the GTNM.

Try as they might, they can’t figure out two things: Who would want to summon a tornado to Centralia? And why would they want to hurt Francis’s family?