"Penny has never met anyone smarter than her. That's par for the course when you're a savant--one of less than one hundred in the world. But despite her photographic memory and super-powered intellect, there's one question Penny doesn't know the answer to: where did her father go when he left her and her mother years ago? On Penny's 21st birthday, she receives a card in the mail from her father, just as she has every year since he left. But this birthday...

To help her fall asleep, the author tells his daughter a bedtime story from his mischievous childhood when he bought magic beans with his mother's grocery money.

At her mother's request Priya is planning a surprise anniversary party for her father, but she is finding it hard to keep it a secret from her inquisitive dad.