Overweight teen Terri is mercilessly teased by his peers for coming to school still wearing pajamas and for his other uncaring quirks. Resigned to his outsider status, Terri is surprised when his tough-talking vice principal, Mr. Fitzgerald, takes an interest in him. Although his efforts are sometimes clumsy and at times dubiously professional, he genuinely wants to help him through this tough time. Under Fitzgerald's tutelage, Terri befriends a pair of fellow misfits, Chad, an edgy loner whose rebellion masks his own insecurities, and Heather, a sexually precocious girl whose beauty proves to be a trap of its own. The three teenagers, different on the surface but outcasts all the same, find an unexpected, imperfect bond that reflects the tenuousness, poignancy and pathos of the adolescent experience.