On a moonlit night, thirteen-year-old Miles O'Malley packs up his kayak and goes exploring on the flats of Puget Sound. Miles loves looking for starfish, snails, crabs and clams, but as he forages he comes across a startling sight. His heart pounds as he moves closer to an enormous breathing beast. Then he realises that he is looking at something remarkable: a giant squid. Miles becomes a celebrity and is pursued by TV crews who hope that this intelligent boy can make sense of the phenomenon. Meanwhile the sea continues to throw out mysteries from its depths, and his psychic friend Florence predicts that even more amazing discoveries will precede the highest tide in fifty years, and that this will hold life-changing events for Miles. But Miles has earth-locked problems. He fears that ageing Florence will be put in a home, that the passion for his dreadlocked ex-babysitter Angie will go unrequited, that his arguing parents will divorce, and that everything, even the bay, is shifting away from him. His goal this summer is to stop things from changing. This gripping story of obsession, beauty and the wonders of the sea intoxicates the reader with its humour and tragedy as a young boy comes of age in a summer never to be forgotten.