Tash doesn't want to go to camp, doesn't want to spend the summer with a bunch of strangers, doesn't want to be separated from the only two people she has ever been able to count on: her uncle Kevin, who saved her from foster care, and Cap'n Jackie, who lives next door. As it happens, camp is actually pretty fun, and making a new friend isn't as hard as Tash thought it would be. But when she returns home, Cap'n Jackie is gone.
Tash needs her - and the made-up stories of dolphin-dragons, the warm cookies that make everything all right after a fight, the key that Cap'n Jackie insists has magic in it. The Captain has always said that all Tash has to do is hold it tight and the magic will come. Is it true? And can Tash use it to get her back?