The book’s protagonist, Rose Howard, introduces herself and her family to the reader. Martin presents the narrative as an explicitly stylized story; in other words, Rose knows she’s narrating the novel’s events to the reader. She also understands that she is the protagonist: “This is how you tell a story: First, you introduce the main character. I’m writing this story about me, so I am the main character” (4). Rose is almost 12 years old and is in the fifth grade in the small town of Hatford, New York. She has been held back at school because she has high-functioning autism, which makes it hard for her to learn in a mainstream classroom setting, especially in a smaller school district with relatively few resources for students with autism. Some of the challenges Rose faces in such an environment are alluded to in this chapter.

Rose is fascinated by homonyms and sprinkles them throughout the text (for example, in the title of this chapter, the name “Rose” is followed by its homonym “Rows” in parentheses). She describes her family: She’s an only child and lives with her father, Wesley.