Fourteen-year-old Alison Pope thinks to herself about other people as she descends the stairs. She pretends that the staircase is marble. She pretends there are princes waiting for her. She remembers she has a recital tonight and needs to get her tights out of the dryer.

She thinks of all the things she loves, like her town, her dance teacher, and the other kids at school. She feels happy and pretends she is in the woods and sees a baby deer. The baby deer’s mom is shot so she protects the baby deer. The hunter wants to seduce Alison. Alison declines and makes the hunter give the deer a fancy burial.

She thinks about boys from school. She wonders if she is special. Out the living room window, she saw her neighbor, Kyle Boot, running home. He was skinny and frail, but an asset to the cross country team. They grew up together but were not close anymore. Kyle’s parents do not let him do anything.

She thinks about people who are awesome, like her parents and her teacher who still teaches ethics after her husband had an affair.

There is a knock at the door. She answers it. It was a man she did not know in a meter-reader vest.

Kyle ran into his house. He looks at the wooden indicator that says where everyone in the house is. Everyone was out.

Kyle had a work notice in the kitchen from his father regarding a geode on the back porch. He was to put it in the yard. It was worth five work points and was to be done before his father arrived home. Kyle feels resentment towards his father. He goes to the yard to do the work. He thought about how he would be in trouble if his parents came home and saw him barefoot in the house and swearing in his head. He feels guilty that he resents his parents.

With the work he will do today, he will have fifteen treat points so far. This means he could get yogurt raisins and twenty minutes of tv.

His parents often threaten to make him quit cross-country as punishment.

Kyle sees the van pull up outside. He watches the meter reader go to Alison’s house. He thinks Alison is a treasure and his heart sings. He sees the man tug Alison by the wrist out of the house. Kyle steps outside and the guy flashes his knife. Alison appears terrified.

The man contemplates what he is going to do once he gets her to the van. He has no family. He hits Alison when she doesn’t want to get in the van.

Kyle watches. He thinks about his time growing up with Alison. He doesn’t know what to do. He feels he should have never stepped outside and should pretend he never saw what happened. At the same time, he doesn’t want to be the guy that didn’t do something. He knew calling 911 wouldn’t stop what was happening. He knew his parents would have demanded that he come back inside. Still, Kyle gets the geode and runs across the lawn while thinking of everything he is doing wrong (by his parent’s standards). He smashes the geode through the windshield and into the meter reader’s skull. Alison escapes and runs back to the house to call for the police.

Kyle and the Meter-Reader hear sirens. Kyle looms over the man, threatening to smash his skull with the geode.

Alison is standing in her kitchen watching Kyle hold the rock. She whispers ‘don’t.’ She has nightmares for months after that Kyle decapitates the man and she is unable to scream for him to stop.

She talks about this with her parents who remind her that she did go stop Kyle from killing them man and that they were both good kids.