Chapter 1 takes place on Monday afternoon, September 24, and is told from first Bronwyn’s then Cooper’s points of view.

On her way to detention, Bronwyn runs into Simon, author of About That, a notorious Bayview High gossip app. Worried about being featured on his app, Bronwyn does not tell him where she is going, but it turns out that he has detention, too, along with Addy (popular beauty queen), Cooper (star baseball player), and Nate (known for dealing drugs). Mr. Avery has given them detention for bringing cell phones to class, which is against his rules. The students claim the phones found on them are not their own, but Mr. Avery ignores them. He assigns the five students to write, in longhand, a 500-word essay on “how technology is ruining American high schools” (7).

Cooper’s hand begins hurting almost immediately, partly because he is unused to writing in longhand and partly because he writes with his right hand, despite being left-handed. His father, who calls him “Cooperstown,” after the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, insists he use his right hand to write so as to save his left for pitching. Simon realizes his water bottle is missing, and Mr.