The Raider

Sixth-grader Micah Harrington Hess is fed up.  The kids in middle school stare straight through him.  Despite his natural friendliness and elementary-school successes, he’s invisible now. 

When he discovers that his ancestor Micah Harrington fought and raided with Jessup’s Loyal Rangers during the U.S. Revolution, Micah decides to imitate his risk-taking ancestor—to raid the unjust and help the helpless.  Micah is ill-informed about the Revolution, but he’s positive no one ignores raiders.  His single mom says, “God sees you and likes what he sees.”  However, Micah wants the kids at school to see him and like what they see, too.

Micah and his friends, Mazi and Luke, start a business making key-racks from scratch.  Their business brings them spending money and community respect, except from Micah’s younger sister, Jodie. 

Throughout the school year, Micah (sometimes with others' help) perpetrates twelve raids: 

— against Micah’s next-door-neighbor, Mr. Pritchert, for throwing tennis balls at dogs;

— against Jodie, for swiping Micah’s best skill, woodworking;

— against Luke, for lying;

— against the grocery-store deli, for selling moldy pizzas;

— against five classmates, for bullying a Bulgarian student;

— against Mr. Pritchert again, this time based on mathematical probability;

— against Micah’s, Luke’s, and Mazi’s neighborhoods, for abusing the garbage collectors by putting out putrid trash;

— against a car thief, for theft and for kidnapping the driver;

— against Micah’s mom, for taking fewer photos of toddler brother Kevin than of Micah or Jodie;

— against a suspicious backpack, for possibly hiding a bomb;

— against Micah's mom and siblings, just for fun;

— against Micah’s remote dad, for loving Jodie more.

Some of Micah's raids bring triumph, others turmoil, and one brings near-tragedy.  Micah starts to think invisibility was better.

When he eventually learns the truth about what his ancestor did during the Revolution, Micah is disappointed and ashamed, but his friends are not. In the end, Micah quits raiding, partly because kids stop ignoring him, but mostly because he realizes God sees him and likes what he sees.