The Stevens are a middle-class family living in Sacramento, CA. Husband and father Steve is a successful attorney. Wife and mother Eileen is a state Senator. Their oldest child Donnie ia a high-school sports legend. Ren, an 8th-grader, is just about the perfect daughter. She makes the best grades, she's popular, she does volunteer work and other extracurricular tasks by the score. Her brother Louis, in the 7th grade, is her opposite. He likes to sleep late, he's messy, his grades are not good, he's frequently in detention and he seems to take nothing seriously. But he is serious about finding something of his own that he can do to put himself on a par with the rest of his overachieving family. Though he and Ren occasionally soften their attitudes toward each other, at any given moment the're likely to be fighting like mongoose and cobra.