Things don't go quite as planned for Tucker and Becca on the first day of school. Now that they're finally in eighth grade, Becca is looking forward to writing for the school paper and Tucker wants to be the school announcer. However, Tucker soon learns that he's up against Jack, a smooth-talking new kid who seems determined to humiliate him. Meanwhile, Becca and her best friend Christine are disappointed to find that they aren't in the same homeroom.

When both Tucker's and Becca's parents go away for the weekend, they decide the time is right to throw a party at Tucker's house. But Becca's sister, Ellen is planning her own party at their house and when Becca hears that the extremely cute Zach Anderson is going to be there, she forgets her plans with Tucker and their friends and begs Ellen to include her. Of course things don't go as smoothly as they all hope.

Becca wants to invite Rob Wetzel to a school dance, but she doesn't know if he likes her. So Kerry suggests that they create a ""Cool Book"" and pass it around so that others will write down what they think of everyone in school and then they'll know who's cool or not cool. Becca thinks it's a good idea at first but soon realizes that there are some things you'd rather not know. Meanwhile, Tucker agonizes over why no one has written anything about him in the cool book so he does it himself.