Ellie Cowan and her mother, Alice Cowan, are eating dry lasagna and watching The Great British Bake Off when Ellie’s grandmother, Mema, calls. Alice steps out of the room to take the call and later informs Ellie that her grandpa has had another episode involving his Alzheimer’s condition: He locked Mema out of their house. A neighbor had to help her break in through a window. Both Ellie and her mother are concerned about her grandpa’s fading memory.

The phone call makes Ellie worry that it is her special needs aide, Lauren, calling to discuss her behavior at school. In flashback, Ellie reveals that she left the cafeteria, unattended, and rolled outside to eat her lunch. Ellie attributes this behavior to her only friend, Emma Claire, being absent from school; the smell and sound of the cafeteria; and her tiredness with “bearing witness to everybody else’s normal” (8). As Ellie is an adolescent with cerebral palsy, she often feels different from most of the other students at her school. Ellie finished her lunch outside and accidentally fell asleep, missing part of her next class. This was where Lauren discovered her.