Mitchell Goosen (McDermott) is a teenager from California who loves to surf and rollerblade. His zoologist parents are given the opportunity for grant work in Australia for six months. Eager to accompany his parents to the surf-friendly shores of the South Pacific, he is dismayed to find out that he will not be joining them and instead will be living with his aunt and uncle in Cincinnati, Ohio, so as to finish the remainder of his high school semester.