Nal, a fourteen year-old high school freshman in a coastal town in Australia, feels like he's hit his nadir when a seagull steals the patty from his hamburger. Additionally, his cousin gave him a bad haircut, his mother lost her job, which has forced him to work during the summer instead of going to a pre-college program for gifted students, and his older brother Samson has started to date his high school crush Vanessa. A smart but nervous boy, Nal spends most of his time dribbling his basketball around town. One day, while he's out alone, Nal follows one of the seagulls that has been bothering him. The seagull leads him to a nest where the gulls store objects they've stolen. Nal notices a ticket with his name on it, except the ticket's date is from the future. It is for a class trip that he was supposed to go on, but after his mother lost her job, his name had been removed from the roster. He takes the ticket and goes on the trip, and spends the day exploring Whitsunday Island with Vanessa. When he goes back to the seagull nest later, Nal notices that the birds are gone and the nest has changed, and he starts to find things from the past, which include the window stop screw that caused Nal's mother to lose her job. A while later, Nal is playing basketball when Samson finds him and asks for a loan to buy Vanessa a ring for her birthday. Tired of being pushed around by his brother, Nal hits him. They fight for a minute, and then Samson walks off. Nal goes to the pawn shop and buys the ring himself, then gives it to Vanessa, and they sleep together.