Violet, a feisty 15 year-old who prefers the nickname "Scooter" , decides to run away from her boring life in a small town and goes to visit with the father she has never seen. She believes he lives in the city with his new wife, but in fact he is in a gay relationship with his long-time lover. This inevitably leads to changes and readjustments all round as dad gets to know, reluctantly, the daughter he never wanted.
In New South Wales, Jared surfs with his mates and has a first girl. He hosts a beach party for his older pal, Ricko, and witnesses four of his mates gang-rape a 15 year old. He does nothing, and the next day, she's found murdered. At school, the boys and the girls react: the girls with anger at the perpetrators, the boys with jeering at the dead girl's morality. The students' parents have their own responses. Jared retreats into angry silence, disgusted that he did nothing to help the dead girl. Meanwhile, his mother wants to talk to him about her impending cancer surgery, the police want to know what he saw, and his friend Ricko wants an alibi. Jared's cracking under the pressure.
Seymour is a loner. A small, shy, introverted eleven year old whose parents are separated. By chance Seymour meets the beautiful, effervescent but drug-addicted Angie, who is also lonely and trapped in her own unhappy world. The relationship that develops offers strength to them both and through the highs and lows of a long hot summer they gradually learn to face the truth about each other and themselves.
Celia, an imaginative and somewhat disturbed young girl, fantasizes about evil creatures and other oddities to mask her insecurities while growing up in rural Australia.
An eccentric marketing guru visits a Coca-Cola subsidiary in Australia to try and increase market penetration. He finds zero penetration in a valley owned by an old man who makes his own soft drinks, and visits the valley to see why. After "the Kid's" persistence is tested he's given a tour of the man's plant, and they begin talking of a joint venture. Things get more complicated when the Coca-Cola man begins falling in love with his temporary secretary, who seems to have connections to the valley.
