Summary

The prologue is titled “The Boy on the Bike.” Cedar Lee notices a boy who rides by on a bicycle each day. He seems happy and is wearing strange clothes that catch Cedar's attention. Cedar does not want to call him names because she knows how much it hurt when people called her brother Ben names. Ben was nine when he died, and Cedar knows he noticed that people were cruel. Despite that, Cedar sometimes gives people labels, but only in her head. She knows that is bad, but not as bad as calling people names to be mean. She has nicknamed the boy, later identified as Leo, as “Nerd-on-a-Bike” (Prologue, Location 7).

In Act I, Chapter 1, Cedar describes the house her mother bought. The house will be their summer home in Iron Creek. The house is...