Charlie's world is changing -- for the worse. Her new teacher refuses to call her anything but Charlotte. (Blech!) And forces her to sit next to Jamie Edwards, the most revolting, stuck-up, horrible boy in the whole class. (Yuck!) And assigns her a dreary project on the dreary Victorian period. (Ugh!) But clever Charlie isn't so easily beaten. Instead of writing a boring report, she creates a diary for Lottie, a Victorian nurserymaid, and history suddenly comes to life. Charlie's trouble at home isn't quite so easy to fix. It's always been just her and her mom, but her mom has been acting really weird lately -- wearing makeup and dressing up for no reason. Could it be, is it possible, that Charlie's mother's got a boyfriend? There's only so much change Charlie can handle before she has to take control of her own life the way she's taken charge of Lottie's!