The third-person omniscient narrator details a list of things Pia Foster and Stevie Munson might have done differently if they knew that their journeys home from school would be different. Quiet Pia Foster hurries home on her skateboard after a day of classes at Latimer Middle School. Pia has named her skateboard Skitter “and called it ‘she’” (46). She has a sister named Santi. The narrator reveals only that something has happened to Santi. Pia contemplates befriending Fawn Samms, “the only other skater she knew. The only other skater who was a girl. The only other skater she respected” (46).

At a neighboring private school named Brookshire Boys Academy, Stevie Munson struggles with the bullying he endures by Marcus Bradford, “a box-faced baseball player who wrote stuff on the back of Stevie’s shirt almost every day” (47). Stevie’s mother sacrifices to pay for his private school education. Because of this, Stevie does not divulge the relentless bullying he faces each day.

To Pia, “skating meant freedom” (49). She ignores the chastisement of her teachers and “spent most days daydreaming about frontside 180s, while scribbling her sister’s name on the desk” (49).