There are no cell phones allowed at Peace Valley Farms, where sophisticated urbanites send their children to milk cows and live out their back-to-the-land fantasies. The girls of Sycamore cabin don’t mind, though. They just learned about manifesting, and they’ve got intentions to set. It’s the summer after sixth grade, and the seven Sycamore girls spend it terrorizing and taking care of one other as they navigate crushes, periods, gangrene, and bunny murder.

Written by a veteran middle school teacher and starring a teenage cast, YOU NEED HELP explores the tension between safety and freedom, the interdependence of all living things, and what it means to seek control when even your own body is in chaos.

Here lies Dizzy, warm in the earth like we will all be someday. Tonight the worms will eat Dizzy, and tomorrow the birds will eat the worms, and the next day the cows will eat the birds, and that’s how we nourish ourselves. That’s how we grow. That’s how life goes.