Tim and his mother Gali have just moved to the neighborhood after Tim’s father, Bobby, was killed in the Vietnam War. They live with Mrs. Cameron, Tim’s grandmother and Gali’s mother-in-law. Before Evie goes to meet Tim, her mom tells her not to mention his father, but the first thing Tim tells Evie is that his dad is dead. Tim likes to play a game in which he reenacts his father’s death on the battlefield. He imagines that Bobby’s friend, Hank, had been shot, and that Bobby sought to avenge Hank but was killed in the process. In their game, Evie plays Hank and Tim plays his father. Tim and Gali’s moving in was initially supposed to be temporary, but months pass, and it appears that they will be staying in town. Evie’s father mentions that Bobby, Mrs. Cameron’s only son, could have married the daughter of a rich politician who would have wielded his influence to keep Bobby out of the draft. Gali, meanwhile, is relatively poor, and Evie’s church-going parents and grandmother are prejudiced against her Jewish heritage. As Evie watches the war play out on TV, her reenactments with Tim become ever more complex. Following Tim’s lead, she becomes bolder around Mrs. Cameron and Gali. Although Gali wants the kids to stop playing their game, Mrs. Cameron prohibits Gali from intervening and indulges Tim. Eventually, Evie and Tim become bored playing with an invisible enemy and decide to “ambush” Mrs. Cameron and Gali. But they catch Mrs. Cameron while she’s coming down the steps of the porch and, startled, she falls down the stairs and cuts her forearm on the plate she’d been holding. Blood pools from her arm. Evie tries to run into the house to call 911, but Gali stops her, chides her for acting like she “owns” the place, and slaps Evie across the face. Gali says that Tim had always been a good boy until he started hanging around a “goyische” girl. Evie runs into town to get help; people come to take Mrs. Cameron to the hospital, where she gets stitches for her arm. Later, Evie recalls that, though many people lauded her for running quickly into town, she had actually meant to run back to her own house but got lost. Running away from the scene of Mrs. Cameron's fall, she had felt not only fear, but also a twisted elation, the word "goyische" ringing in her ear.