Content Warning: The source material uses offensive language to describe mental health conditions.

Zachary Barlow plays with dolls alongside his friends, Poppy and Alice, in the gravel driveway outside Poppy’s ramshackle house. He plays William the Blade, a pirate aboard the Neptune’s Pearl. Alice plays G.I. Joe Lady Jaye, a thief traveling with William to Silverfall after unsuccessfully pickpocketing him. They’re on a mission from the Great Queen. Poppy plays a mermaid who will allow William and Lady Jaye to sail through her waters in exchange for a sacrifice. Poppy has a flare for the dramatic, which makes her great at playing the villain, but she loves to take charge of a story and make up her own rules. This sometimes frustrates Zach and Alice.

Zach loves playing these games of pretend, which almost make him believe he’s “aboard a real ship, with salt spray stinging his face, on his way to adventure” (6). At the same time, he worries that if his classmates at his middle school or on his basketball team learn of his hobby, he’ll get bullied.

Poppy’s brothers, Tom and Nate, approach the three friends to mock their doll game. They tell Alice that her overprotective grandmother, old lady Magnaye, wants her home.