Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Black racism in the Jim Crow South, including lynching and racist slurs. 

Two weeks before they start the 4th grade, Carrie and her best friend, Zora, witness an alligator attack a man named Sonny. Sonny finds the biggest alligator he can, a beast named Ghost, and calls a number of men to watch him wrestle it. Carrie and Zora watch as Ghost mauls Sonny. Three men rescue him, but his arm is mangled, and he dies later that night. Ghost disappears without a trace, despite efforts to find and kill him. 

Zora’s father, Mr. Hurston, decides along with the town marshal, Joe Clarke, that it is not proper to talk about the incident in front of women and children. Carrie grapples with the knowledge that her mother has given up hope that her father, who has been gone for months, is ever coming home. When school starts, the other children pester Carrie and Zora for accounts of Sonny’s death.

At school, girls tease Zora and accuse her of lying when she tells a story. Zora insists that she is not lying, she really did see a man turn “into a half gator” (8). She was at a swimming hole called the Blue Sink one night when she heard a strange sound.