The first chapter introduces the narrator, Melody Brooks, who shares with readers her deep connection with words, and by extension, the magic of language. The narrator uses a simile to express her relationship with words: “Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes—each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands” (1).

From when she can first remember, the narrator says she drank words “like lemonade” and that they “pile up in huge drifts” (1) inside of her. Her parents taught her the value of words and communication from their conversations, vocalizations, and the words they shared with her. By the age of two, the narrator says she could remember every word ever spoken to her and that “all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings” (1). The irony the narrator reveals at the end of the chapter is that she is almost 11 years old and has never spoken a word.

Melody is wheelchair-bound; it is a situation she cannot control, much like her inability to walk, talk, feed herself, or use the bathroom alone. Her hands and arms are stiff, she cannot hold items without dropping them, and she has no balance.