Set in Washington, D.C., Smart Guy centers on the misadventures of boy genius and youngest child T.J. Henderson, who at the age of 10 moves from elementary school and gets transferred to Piedmont High School, where he ends up becoming a high school sophomore with teenagers as his classmates. He must adjust to the life with older, but not necessarily wiser, high school teenagers – including his brother Marcus and Marcus's best friend Mo. Stories typically deal with T.J.'s missteps of trying to fit in as a kid genius, while being a small kid in high school, as well as the contrast between his smarts and his brother's underachieving nature.