Ms MacArthur's class is pumped about the fitness challenge at the park — it's where kids from local schools compete in a series of events such as chin-ups, a tire run, a bicycle obstacle course and monkey-bar swinging. The winner will get a brand-new bike! But when Rilla and her classmates, Lauren and Nicholas, go to the park to practise, a threatening bully and his sidekicks stop them. Will they ever get to use the playground — or hope to win any of the fitness challenge events?

Though bullying is a serious topic many kids face, Nancy Wilcox Richards's tone is funny, light and positive, and in the end, the Bayfield kids succeed in pulling together to curb the bully's behaviour.