Tish Bonner's high-school English class has to keep a dumb journal for their teacher, Mrs. Dunphrey. Doesn't Mrs. Dunphrey know that kids are too busy coping with real life to be bothered with writing? But when 16-year-old Tish's life is turned upside down, her journal becomes her only confidante.

Relying on her teacher's promise that she won't read any entry marked "don't read this," Tish writes about her loneliness and fear when her mother abandons her and her little brother. Alone and with nowhere to turn, the teenager is forced to trust Mrs. Dunphrey with a final entry — one that she desperately wants her to read.