"Darlene had given a lot of thought to this process. Sometimes she thought how much like instant soup she was. She was almost sure she had things inside her, disguised and hidden, just waiting for the right ingredient to poof them up into something new and important."

Darlene Wicklund loves instant soup--not because it tastes good, but because hiding in that soft powder are lots of green and red and orange bits. Add hot water and everything fills out and poofs up. Darlene thinks she herself is like instant soup. Meanwhile her life feels more like the stratocumulus stratoformus clouds that her weatherman father has so often described to her--lumpy, overcast, and dull. When will glamour come into her life? When will she poof up into that fascinating, colorful person she knows she is meant to be?

Finding solutions for problems and handling challenges responsibly can lead, Darlene discovers, to being that colorful, exciting person she is meant to be.