Summer has begun on Martha's Vineyard, but Gayle isn't interested. Not in working at an ice cream stand. Not in softball, since she broke her arm on a bad play and hasn't seen her team since. Not even in Shark!, the big Hollywood movie being filmed on the island. All she wants to do is help her mother open their long-planned ice cream stand. But because of Gayle's hospital bills, they don't have the money to do even that.

Enter Maddie and Elijah, Gayle's new friends and her ticket off this cursed island. With their help, Gayle schemes to win a youth film contest and use the prize money to get the ice cream stand up and running. But those plans quickly go awry as their movie uncovers a long-dormant island mystery and the friends' very reasons for creating the film irrevocably shift.