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Ben is excited about entering middle school with his friends Nick and Josh, especially since he has gotten on a travel soccer team. However, there are challenges when he enters the Wild West of middle school-- the lunchroom. Josh is usually a well liked kid, but he's determined to put together a "squad" of at least ten kids so that there is some social protection or cool factor attached to them. Ben would fit right in except for one thing; he only eats ten foods, and his lunch every single day is a plain bagel, mini pretzels, and piece of chocolate. When Darren, who is a dirty soccer player and didn't make the team, gives him a hard time about it, Ben tries to laugh it off, but Darren is relentless. It doesn't help that Ben's own father has given him problems for years. It's not that Ben just doesn't like food, he gags if he is even around certain strong smells like coffee. His father makes frequent comments that he needs to "snap out of it", and even tries to get Ben to eat a simple chicken and rice dish for dinner instead of buttered pasta. Ben's mother is more understanding, but very concerned about an upcoming school field trip to the historical Abner Farm. She makes a deal with Ben that if he attends two counseling sessions to try to find ways to cope with his food avoidance, she will try to get his father to back off. Ben finds out that he probably suffers from ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), but would rather just keep things under wraps instead of letting everyone at school know. The Abner Farm trip looms large. In addition to living in tents, students will be eating historical food like succotash, and there's no way that Ben can eat that. At first, he thinks he just won't go, but then there is Lauren. He has a huge crush on her, but so does Darren. Darren is constantly picking at Ben. When the kids hang out, he notices that Ben doesn't eat pizza. He makes fun of him and Olivia, Ben's lab partner and super smart student who has an unfortunate past. Olivia is kind to Ben, and even helps him take a "supertaster" test. He even causes a brief rift between Ben and Lauren when Ben decides to run for vice president and Lauren runs for president of the sixth grade. Deciding that he can't let Darren and Lauren go to Abner Farm without him, he decides to go, and even leaves the granola bars his mother wants him to take behind. He figures that the flapjacks on the menu are close enough to the pancakes he will eat, and plans to survive on those. It's harder than he thinks, although he manages to help out with meals and avoid most of the foods that trigger him. He manages to get by, and the wise Olivia even brings him a granola bar, but Darren keeps finding ways to bother him. When a bag of candy bars is found in Ben's duffle and he faces being thrown out of camp, he finally admits that he has a severely restrictive diet, thus the food cannot be his. Darren's antics come to light, and Ben's friends are able to be a little more understanding of his condition.