Sierra, a girl in eighth grade in a southern Colorado town named Saguarita, narrates this story. An unusually snowy and rainy spring has left the soil soft, and a few of Sierra’s male classmates have decided to take shovels and picks to an area on the town’s western edge, “a place where the land with its silken fibers of swaying grass resembled a sleeping woman with her face pressed firmly to the pillow, a golden blonde by day, a raven-haired beauty by night” (3).

A boy named Robbie Martinez first hits bone during the impromptu excavation. The boys are quick to discover broken bits of pottery and human teeth, “scattered like dried kernels of yellow corn” (4). While Robbie initially acts blasé about his discovery, he quickly realizes that they must not disturb the site any further—and they must inform the rest of the townspeople about it. The boys bring word back, and soon the entire town is buzzing.

A few days later, the eighth-grade project is announced at Sierra’s school: Their teacher Mrs. Sharply tells them that they will each be randomly paired with a student of the opposite gender and tasked with raising “babies”—which are bags of sugar that have been dressed in baby beanies and diapers.