"As the boy with the purple ball cap walked towards the tennis court, he could see that it had been an energetic point that was going on. ...that had been going on. He stopped for a moment to assess the situation, shrugged his slim shoulders and continued walking. He opened up the door to the fence that surrounded the courts and stepped out onto the green concrete. The ball was now sitting perfectly still just a foot or so off the ground near the tall lanky boy with the not-completely-grown-in mustache. No one on the court was moving. Everyone was perfectly still--frozen in mid-motion on the court. ...] It was really eerie. It was almost as if someone had hit the pause button on the remote control. Except, this was real life on pause, not a movie." Seventeen-year-old Johnny (otherwise known as Stopper) has the unusual ability to stop time for the rest of the world. And it's a power that he himself can't control. He can't interact with people in a normal way because of his power and has multiple character flaws that have developed as a result. A group of friends at the local school start to notice the strange things happening whenever this particular boy is around and they try their best to make contact with him. They eventually end up adopting him as one of their own, all the while trying to protect him from a looming threat.