Summary

The free-verse novel begins with Amal thinking about how his mother, Umi, made him watch his birth video every year. She tells him that he was born with an old soul. Amal thinks about this while he sits in the courtroom in his gray suit. The prosecutor asks Ms. Rinaldi, Amal’s art teacher, if she ever saw him get angry. Ms. Rinaldi replies that she was working hard with Amal to channel his anger into his art. Amal feels as though “she didn’t even have to look my way because she won’t see me. She’s never seen me. She only sees my paintings and drawings as if me and what I create are two different worlds. There’s a stone in my throat and a brick on my chest” (29).

Peer witnesses are called from East Hills, a neighborhood that...