After her parents' divorce, Amelia and her mother leave Manhattan to live with the mother's sister in Pennsylvania. Amelia makes new friends in the neighborhood, going so far as to join their superhero club G.A.S.P. [Gathering of Awesome Super Pals]. Club leader Reggie inveigles the others into taking on two local bullies. Things go badly until Reggie neutralizes the bullies (and everyone else) with a horrifying sneeze barf. Back at home Amelia despairs as her parents argue on the phone, but Tanner, who creates and plays her own songs, sings her niece to sleep.; Amelia sets off to Joe McCarthy Elementary School with good intentions, but finds that the teachers are as crazy as the students. She's sent to the principal's office repeatedly over various disturbances, some of which she's actually responsible for. Tanner tells her that very little that happens in elementary school will matter in the long run.; Reggie assaults a mall Santa Claus as part of a predictably disastrous investigation into whether Santa is real. Amelia milks her divorced parents' guilt to get lots of Christmas gifts from each of them. But having learned that Pajamaman's family has been living in extremely straitened circumstances, she slips into his house to leave one of her gifts, which she knows he longs for. Reggie and Pajamaman conclude that Santa must be real after all.; Amelia looks forward to a camping trip with her dad, and resents it when he invites her friends along. She reluctantly comes around after he explains that he wants to know her friends because they are part of her life, and he wants to be as much a part of her life as he can.; Amelia's dad has to cancel her planned visit to Manhattan, so Tanner arranges a Halloween party for Amelia and her friends. The party doesn't live up to expectations, and neither does trick-or-treating. But Rhonda and Amelia do have the pleasure of beating up Bug and Iggy.