In the chap­ter, we meet Aman­da Beale, a girl prepar­ing for school with a suit­case full of books. She catch­es the atten­tion of Jef­frey Magee, known as Mani­ac, because he mis­tak­en­ly assumes she’s run­ning away like he is. Intrigued by her suit­case, Mani­ac greets her with a casu­al “Hi,” which puts Aman­da on alert, ques­tion­ing his pres­ence in the pre­dom­i­nant­ly black East End where she lives.

Despite her ini­tial sus­pi­cion, Aman­da responds with a friend­ly “Hi” and explains that she is not run­ning away—she is on her way to school. Amused by his mis­con­cep­tion, she laughs so hard that she has to sit on her suit­case. Aman­da then reveals the con­tents of her suit­case: it is packed with a mul­ti­tude of books—fiction, non­fic­tion, encyclopedias—gleaming with the pride of a young bib­lio­phile.

As school bells begin to ring, Aman­da pre­pares to leave, but not before Jef­frey offers to car­ry her suit­case. She, how­ev­er, pulls it back sus­pi­cious­ly and digs deep­er into his iden­ti­ty. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals the racial divide of the town, as Aman­da deduces that Jef­frey can­not be from the East End. He admits he is from Bridge­port but seems con­fused about his cur­rent where­abouts, lead­ing Aman­da to sug­gest he should clar­i­fy where he belongs.

Their exchange con­tin­ues, with Aman­da explain­ing why she hauls her entire library: her younger sib­lings’ habit of scrib­bling on any paper avail­able and a destruc­tive dog named Bow Wow. Both kids sprint towards school, and Jef­frey, eager to read, asks if he can bor­row a book. Aman­da refus­es but reluc­tant­ly con­sid­ers lend­ing him one under the con­di­tion he returns it, reveal­ing her home address, albeit with empha­sis on the bound­ary between their worlds.

As she rush­es away for school, Aman­da hasti­ly toss­es a book—The Children’s Crusade—at Jef­frey before enter­ing class, caus­ing him to final­ly grasp the sig­nif­i­cance of her ded­i­ca­tion to read­ing. That day marks a piv­otal moment where their paths cross, high­light­ing not only their per­son­al dif­fer­ences but their grow­ing con­nec­tion through lit­er­a­ture.