Chance Murphy, a 13-year-old living in Morganville, Indiana during the mid 1980s, is full of contradictions. He wants to be a man, but he has the needs of a child; he loves his mentally handicapped sister, but he also resents her and wishes she weren' t such an easy target for the other kids; he is witty, but he embarrasses easily, especially when it comes to dealing with his emerging sexual feelings. Though Chance has a big heart, he has a dark side that surfaces in dreams of nuclear obliteration and manifests into paranoia and an "enemies list"-- at the top of which is his archenemy, Otto Manheim, the neighborhood kid. While the tension between the two creates many comical moments, the conflict escalates and finally reaches a boiling point at the bloody battle of Morganville.