- So the narrator's story is in the newspapers—looks like the Big Everything, whatever it is, really is big.
- Thanks to an excerpt from one of the articles, we learn that our narrator has a name. Phew. Please say hello to Bart Rangely and his parents, Corinne and Jim.
- According to the newspaper article, Corinne worked in the World Trade Center. So maybe now you know where this is going: The article doesn't specifically mention September 11, 2001, but it's clear that's what this is about.
- Remember how Bart's dad and Caroline worked in the same office as his mom? Yeah… Jim Rangely is missing and presumed dead.
- Bart's flu, however, saved his mom from being at work that day; all the papers, and even people in Bart's family, seem to think of this as a miracle.
- Bart doesn't really think of it this way, though. He thinks it was an accident.
- In the confusion after the towers fell, no one was sure where Bart's dad was. Well, until Caroline called Bart's mom to let her know that he was almost certainly among the dead.
- Caroline had slept in, so she wasn't in the office that day; Bart and his mom can't help but wish it were Caroline who died instead of Bart's dad.
- Bart's grief is complicated because it's mixed with his anger about the whole abandonment thing.
- He notes that at least four other people in Hillbrook were killed on September 11, so the town is lousy with reporters.
- In the middle of the town's show of grief was Bart, the Miracle Boy who saved his mother's life. He feels like a fraud, in a way.
- On top of all those complicated feelings, Bart also feels anxious about how close he came to losing his mother.
- And he's also anxious about the prospect of going back to school; he's pretty sure it will be awkward and difficult.
- Bart and his mom are getting a lot of swag from sympathetic people—packages with food and other gifts—but they don't really enjoy any of it. Their neighbors, and everyone in town for that matter, treat them like celebrities.
- Everyone seems to think Bart's lucky, but he doesn't feel lucky. Instead he feels sad, and just about every other feeling (except lucky).
- A week passes and Bart finally returns to school. It's really uncomfortable, so he asks his mom if he can stay home a while longer.
- His mom is home, too, since her office was destroyed in the attack. Though she and Bart are together, they're pretty isolated from the rest of the world.
- Beneath all his grief, Bart feels like a liar since no one knew his father left the family six months before he died. The secret weighs heavily on Bart.
- In October, Bart and his mom receive a letter from Baileywell. Bart's intuition is to hide the letter, though; it's almost like he knows it contains something bad.
- Turns out Bart's mom always wanted him to go to Baileywell. But his grades weren't so great, and anyway it's expensive.