On the bus to school, new kid Roy gets bullied by an older boy, Dana Matherson, who presses Roy’s face against the window. Roy notices a boy running alongside the bus; blond, deeply tanned, and wearing only a basketball jersey and dirty shorts, the boy runs past the bus stop and angles off through the backyards of a nearby neighborhood. Roy wonders who the boy might be.

Meanwhile, Officer David Delinko visits a vacant lot on the edge of town where soon another Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House will go up. There, he meets a bald supervisor named Curly who complains that the site’s survey stakes all have been pulled up, tossed randomly about, and their holes filled in.

Delinko notes that none of the stakes are broken and asks for Curly’s estimate of damages. Curly says the vandalism will delay construction, causing rented machinery to lie idle. Delinko concludes that the crime is not vandalism but malicious mischief; he guesses it is a youthful prank. Curly wants a police report to send to the insurance company.

Delinko trips on a hole in the ground. Curly says it is the entrance to an owl’s nest.