Hope Roberts is a confident eleven-year-old girl who plans to be an astrophysicist, and who loves swimming, Galaxy Girl comic books, her best friend Sam, and her two rescue dogs (not necessarily in that order); but then she starts middle school, and suddenly she cannot seem to do anything right--even science club is a problem because she and another girl, Camilla, get stuck with the boring part of the science project that they suggested, but Hope is determined to prove herself and make sure that Project Middle School is a success.