Content Warning: The source material and this guide discuss domestic violence.

A teenager named Castle Cranshaw lists several strange world records, including a woman who owned 5,631 rubber ducks. He believes that he has the record for buying the most sunflower seeds from Mr. Charles’s country store. After buying a pack, Castle goes to a bus stop and watches people through the front window of a gym across the street. He likes to watch the people on the stair-stepper machines and wonder who will pass out first.

Castle remembers his father watching football on TV while eating sunflower seeds. One night, when his father was as drunk as Castle had ever seen him, he shot at Castle and his mother, Teri, with a pistol. He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Castle and Teri spent that night hiding at Mr. Charles’s store.

Castle sees kids running on the track at the park and thinks, “Running ain’t nothing I ever had to practice. It’s just something I knew how to do” (7). He thinks that the night his father chased them was the night he learned how to run.