Amanda Forsythe, an independent-minded eleven-year-old with a stratospheric intellect, enters her school's science fair with a project on interstellar travel. Despite its brilliance, the project loses and Amanda is humiliated -- that is, until she is approached by two scientists from the STAR Academy. The Academy is an elite boarding school with a simple but ambitious mandate: to cultivate the greatest scientists of tomorrow. They offer Amanda a full scholarship. After taking up residence at the remote, fortress-like Academy, Amanda settles into an exciting life of new friends and supportive teachers, and though everything seems too good to be true, Amanda makes a disturbing discovery.