
Paolo calls Rufus "a Mack truck with no one driving." Rufus is the O'Neil family dog, and he shows up one morning with part of a twenty-dollar bill in his teeth. Twelve-year-old Paolo figures that there must be more where that bill came from, and since his cousin Billy needs...

In a small California town in 1951, twelve-year-old Paolo and his deaf cousin Billy get caught up in a search for money missing from the church collection, leading them to complicated discoveries about themselves, other family members, and townspeople they thought they knew...
