Chapter 1 begins on the night Fadi and his parents escape from Kabul. As their taxi speeds through war-torn streets, Fadi thinks about his favorite book, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. He admires the protagonist, Claudia, for planning to run away. Fadi’s father and the taxi driver reminisce about how the city used to be vibrant and full of merchants before the Soviet occupation.

Fadi flashes back to the previous winter, on the day his father announced that they would be leaving Afghanistan. The apartment is bare; they have sold all their belongings on the black market to pay for their passports and paperwork. Habib explains that the Taliban are becoming more repressive that and even slight infractions of their laws, like possessing human-looking toys such as a Barbie doll, are grounds for imprisonment. We learn that Habib received his Ph.D. in agriculture in Wisconsin and returned to Afghanistan to help farmers transition from growing poppies for the opium trade to growing food. We also learn that Mariam was born in Wisconsin.