Vanessa Snyder (Alexa Vega) is a well-respected eighth-grader in her school. She has a loving single, divorced mother, Barbara (Lisa Vidal), who is proud of her academically and socially successful daughter. Vanessa is also "in" with the popular clique, which consists of her best friend Stacey Larson (Leah Pipes), the queen bee (sociology), and Nikki Rodriguez (Elizabeth Rice), who is secretly jealous of the bond between her two friends. On the exterior of the circle is the Outcast (person), Emily (Shari Dyon Perry), and the "wikt:wannabe," Tiffany Thompson (Alicia Morton), who is dying to make it into the group.