- Back in the Land of Hannah's Book, Tate shows up at Webb's door and tells him the Cadets have arrived—it's time to get the gang together and go looking for trouble.
- Narnie, Tate, and Webb go into town to meet Jude, and are soon joined by Fitz. Once they're all together, Webb makes a big announcement: Phase one of the tunnel is complete.
- Wait a minute. What tunnel? Could it be the one Jessa McKenzie knows about? Exactly how much of this book is real, anyway?
- Back in Taylor's World, the town is getting ready to throw its annual Welcome Back, Cadets bash, which basically consists of everyone getting together to eat a lot of sausage sandwiches and play rugby.
- Obviously, for the Underground Community this event is kind of a big deal because it means all the factions will be there. Right now, Taylor and the rest of the House leaders are considering giving the Cadets limited water rights.
- Jonah makes a derogatory comment about Santangelo's mother and the two of them get in a fight. Soon, a bunch of the house leaders and some Townies are involved and it becomes a total free-for-all. Wow, that escalated quickly.
- As if this couldn't get any more out of control, the police show up and everyone gets arrested, including Taylor, who's guilty by association because she's in charge even though she wasn't actually contributing to the carnage.
- To make matters worse, Taylor gets put in a cell with Santangelo and Jonah, which pretty much forces them into more territory negotiations. Santangelo is ticked off because there has been no more said about having access to the Club House from the Cadets.
- Taylor warns Jonah that Jellicoe School has arsonists, and she'd hate to turn a couple of them loose on Cadet property. Particularly the Club House. This scares the guys pretty good.
- Then something really weird happens: The Brigadier walks in. It's the first time Taylor's seen him since she ran away three years ago.
- He stares at Taylor in a way that makes her uncomfortable and creepy. The Brigadier tells Jonah he's going to spend the night in jail, but Taylor senses there's more to his visit than this.
- After several hours of sitting in jail, Taylor is bored out of her mind. Things get more interesting, though, when Santangelo opens his mouth to talk about a shocking subject—the incident with the Hermit.
- Santangelo tells Taylor that he knew the Hermit. He was a peculiar person and had an obsessive-compulsive ritual of diving off a tree branch into the water in the same spot over and over again.
- He asks Taylor what she remembers about the day the Hermit killed himself. In her mind, she remembers waking up at Hannah's house and seeing Hannah crying and holding onto a man whom she assumes knew the Hermit.
- Santangelo tells Taylor that his dad investigated the suicide and cried afterward because the Hermit had a kid. This kind of freaks Taylor out—something about him leaving family behind makes him seem more human.
- Then she has a terrible thought: Could the Hermit have been her father?
- Santangelo tells her no, and Jonah gets angry because Santangelo's obviously agitating Taylor. The two of them are about to have another fight when Taylor has an asthma attack combined with a panic attack from remembering the Hermit shooting himself.
- After she gets her inhaler and calms down, Mr. Palmer shows up to take Taylor back to school. On the way home, he tells her Hannah is fine and has gone to visit a friend named Mrs. Dubose.
- Taylor recognizes the name immediately: Mrs. Dubose is a character in To Kill a Mockingbird.