Simone has fallen in love, deeply and irretrievably, but not with a boy. The centre of her life is a pup she has rescued from death row. Love has filled her life with problems. She has to talk her parents into letting her keep him. She has made rash promises on her heart, her life and her honor, anything to keep her pup.

Pups need to be fed. Pups dig holes, kill chooks, exercise their teeth on whatever is breakable, and howl all night because they are lonely. Simone puts up her age to get a job paying enough to support him. There are more problems keeping her new job secret from her parents and fighting with her best friend and being impressed by a romantic boyfriend who has not yet discovered she is fourteen to his nineteen years.

When disaster strikes, she finds that her best friend's advice to 'tell the truth and shame the devil' to her parents actually works. And the solid down to earth relationship with her gang of supportive friends is even more appreciated.