In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.
When she discovers the price of the coveted clubhouse, ten-year-old Piper and her fellow Gypsy Club members try to earn the money by creating a birthday-party-planning business.
Fifth-grader Piper and her sisters are thrilled about their first-ever camping trip until they learn it will be at Halloween, but other Navy families join them, including an annoying new member of the Gypsy Club.
While her father, a Navy Chief, is on ship duty for six months, nine-year-old Piper stays busy with new neighbors, Christmas at a spaceship beach house, a trip to New Orleans, and especially the upcoming Gypsy Club pet show.