Every Wednesday and Friday, John, Lorraine, and two teen troublemakers, Norton Kelly and Dennis Kobin, make dumb and outrages phone calls to random people. The aim of the game is to see who can stay on the phone the longest. It comes around to Lorraine's turn, she picks out Mr Pignati phone number and pretends to be calling from a charity. After she wins, Mr Pignati offers to donate ten dollars. Her and John decide to travel to Mr Pignati's house to collect the funds. They debated whether to accept Mr pignati's offer to go to the zoo, after giving in they took the offer, then a friendship started among the three of them.
Their visits to Mr Pignati's house became more frequent, but during one particular visit, they discovered a document inside his room. Reading, "Silver Lake, funeral directors" Mr Pignati had been lying. His wife, Conchetta, is dead instead of being on vacation as he has said numerous times. John and Lorraine's visits increased once again, they started visiting him after school daily. Mr Pignati starts to take John and Lorraine under his wing and treating them like his own, with food, gifts and love and attention, something they don't receive in their homes. They revealed that they were never apart of a charity and that they knew that his wife was dead.
Mr Pignati buys them a pair of roller skates each, they all couldn't be happier. One afternoon all three of them were playing tag then Mr Pignati suddenly suffers a heart attack. He was sent to the hospital, both John and Lorraine agree to take care of the house while he recovers. John and Lorraine begin to receive feelings for each other. John starts to become more conscious of his appearance. Having an empty house to themselves, they decide to throw a party. The party got a little out of hand ending with, Drunk visitors, more guests than anticipated, and a destroyed house, with the partygoers not caring what they broke. Norton ransacked Mr Pignati's house, in hopes of finding something of value and destroys Conchetta's porcelain pig collection, which Mr Pignati holds dear to his heart. John beat up Norton in retaliation.