When Rafe is invited to attend an all-expenses paid art field trip in California, he jumps at the opportunity, but things go sideways, as they always do for Rafe, after he realizes he'll be participating in a "Cultural Campout" in the desert and a series of unfortunate events follow, including an encounter with a cranky crocodile, a claustrophobic trip into an ancient cave, and a plot to smuggle a legendary missing diamond.

"Fifth-grader Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez struggles to fit in when his inventor mother requires him to take her latest creation, a robotic 'brother,' to school with him to learn to become a student"--

Rafe Khatchadorian is horrified that because of a missed science assignment he has to go to summer school; but instead of three weeks in a school room he finds himself a volunteer at Bushytail animal refuge, which is really hard, smelly work--and somehow he needs to use the experience (and the help of a girl he meets there) to produce a first class science report.