Upstate South Carolina, 1979, late December. The decade is rapidly nearing its end as the holidays approach, and down along Painter Creek in the shadow of a mountain by the same name, nine-year-old Lucinda Mae, with the help of her best friend Jean, doesn't have any trouble finding things to do. But Lucinda Mae is having trouble at school. Her teacher at Laurel Fork Elementary, Miss Cartmill, seems to be wasting away like she's ill. Lucinda Mae and Jean have fear and respect for Miss Cartmill, and they're worried about her. But Miss Cartmill keeps calling Lucinda Mae " saucy." The girl's a good student and works hard, but she doesn't know what saucy means. Is saucy a good thing or a bad thing to be? Is Miss Cartmill in trouble? If so, can they help her? As the events of this story unfold, Lucinda Mae grows closer to what saucy means, closer indeed to her friend Jean, her family, her community, the people, places, history, and critters, as well as to Miss Cartmill and herself. It all starts on the last day of school before winter break when Lucinda Mae shares with her class at school a photograph that her grandmother, Mimi, took years before of a one-eyed lady in a red dress standing on top of Painter Mountain. The one-eyed lady is covered with sweat, and her reindeer are grazing nearby, but instead, she hitches a wild turkey, a red fox, an osprey, a whitetail deer, a brook trout, and a panther to pull her carriage. What? The next day, by chance, Lucinda Mae and Jean go poking around Old Man Speed's rundown place up the creek, where they make a discovery about the man and their teacher, Miss Cartmill, which sets into motion an adventure by turns suspenseful, magical, meditative, and redemptive.