Finch has trouble paying attention in school. He's just too busy dreaming about uncovering a dinosaur fossil and naming a new species after himself--until he digs up a note in the fifth-grade class garden with the word HELP on it. He is determined to come to the aid of the mystery note-writer. But when the quest turns out to be harder than expected, Finch risks losing two things that he really wants --his best friend Noah, and a field trip to Dinosaur...

Pepita, a little girl who speaks Spanish and English, grows tired of having to translate for all her Spanish-speaking friends and relatives and decides she will no longer speak Spanish, but she fails to think of all the complications it will cause, especially when it comes to trying to train her dog Lobo, who refuses to answer to the name Wolf.