Rinaldi places three fully defined characters before the reader. Nicole (Nicki) DeBonis is a fifteen-year-old girl entering her sophomore year in high school. It is her voice which tells the story of her life: she never knew her mother and now that her father has died, she has been placed in the joint custody of her two older brothers. As a character, Nicki does not always demonstrate her most endearing qualities, and in this respect, perhaps she is depicted as a typical teen-ager. The reader sees that Nicki has the potential to be kind and understanding to others because she provides her friends with unqualified support and works to help them, even when this requires that she lie and steal. Nicki is at her worst when she is defiant and sassy to adults, when she deliberately ignores the instructions of adults, and when she...