Faith
- Will, our disheartened narrator, questions the idea of faith. In fact, he questions everything.
- What kind of cosmic fate has assigned him to this situation, forced into woodshop class, surrounded by people he really doesn't know, or want to know, in this program for kids with issues? Why should we have faith that things will get better if all we can see is evidence that they won't?
- Will's teacher, Mr. Jacks, is impressed by Will's woodworking skills.
- Will, however, is not impressed by anything, especially himself.
- He wants things to be the way things are supposed to be, a.k.a. normal.
- Will meets Angela in woodshop.
- Angela isn't quick to trust Will because he makes cryptic remarks about his past and withholds personal details about himself; his inability to talk about himself honestly makes him seem out of touch and disturbed.
- Will admires Angela's blunt nature and disinterest in pleasing people. She straight-up tells him she doesn't need friends.
- Angela is both annoyed by—and drawn to—Will's mysterious and "moody-broody" (366) demeanor.
- At the grocery store, Will wonders why he should have to shop for his grandparents, whom he regrettably lives with.
- Why can't he just have a normal life? Is he an imposition to them?
- He runs into Angela and they engage in some good, old-fashioned awkward conversation.
- He tells her that he shops for his grandparents and she apologizes for intruding in his personal life, as if she knows something about why he doesn't live with his parents.
- She leaves and he trails her around the store hoping to make a better impression.
- Back at school, Mr. Jacks commends Will for his wood work and tells him to keep up the good job, most of which Will claims he doesn't remember doing.
- Will tells Mr. Jacks that he doesn't want to be doing this, that he had planned to be a pilot, not a guy who spends hours and hours making "fat-faced little gnomes" (470).
- Mr. Jacks offers condolences to Will for what happened to his parents, and says he is truly sorry for what he's been through.
- Will hears on the radio that a local girl has drowned and her death might have been a suicide, but no one knows for sure.
- Duh. What does anyone know for sure anyway?
- The fact that the police don't know if the girl took her own life or if there was foul play haunts Will, though it's not clear why.
- How can anyone ever really know anything for sure unless they are inside someone's head? Suicide always involves gray area.
- And then another dead teenager is discovered—this one, clearly a suicide.
- Will wonders what's wrong with people and why they don't realize they are doomed by patterns established before they were born.
- It seems safe to say at this point that Will isn't exactly a chipper guy.