Summary

Chapter 4 is titled “How to Look (Both) Both Ways,” and takes place on Portal Avenue. Fatima Moss walks down Portal Avenue each day after school. She has created a checklist that she writes daily in her notebook of things that change and things that do not change. The first part of this list has 37 items, and includes that Simeon Cross is carrying Kenzi Thompson on his back down the hallway. She sees the crossing guard, Ms. Post, who greets Fatima by name and Canton Post, her son, holding a broom without a broomstick.

The narrator picks up the story, saying that Fatima's parents had given her strict instructions the first day she walked home by herself. The route is easy because she lives on Portal Avenue, straight down the street from the school. She was instructed to look both ways, not to talk to...