When 12 year old Mercy Mayville’s father, John, is fired from his third job in as many years, Mercy and her imaginary best friend (Scout) set out on a quest to discover how he lost his ambition. They are determined to find an answer: neither distance nor the law can stop them as they trek from Boston to John’s hometown of Buckley, California. With the help of the older, streetwise Annabel Swift, Mercy and Scout peddle faked paintings to pay their way onto trains, buses and boatloads of trouble. The journey across the country turns into a national spectacle when a small town reporter nicknames them “The Forgery Girls.”