Thirteen-year-old Vanessa "Nessie" Gallagher has it all: brains, looks, and charm. Her parents dote on her, her friends adore her – even her teachers and other parents point to her as a shining example of what a young girl should be.

Until one strange day, her mom offers her unkind words instead of a goodbye hug, the neighbor's ferocious Rottweiler retreats with a whine into its yard... Less

Thirteen-year-old Vanessa "Nessie" Gallagher has it all: brains, looks, and charm. Her parents dote on her, her friends adore her – even her teachers and other parents point to her as a shining example of what a young girl should be.

Until one strange day, her mom offers her unkind words instead of a goodbye hug, the neighbor's ferocious Rottweiler retreats with a whine into its yard rather than charging the fence, her fawning teachers refuse to call on her in class, and in P.E. basketball all the girls refuse to guard her.

Thus begins Nessie's long journey into the bizarre world of the universally reviled – a journey that takes her from her California university town across "the Pond" to the Louis B. Leaky Institute of Evolutionary Genetics in London and, finally, to a remote amber mine in Myanmar where she comes face to face with a terrifying past.

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