Trent is a 12-year-old boy living in Tucson, Arizona in 1992. He has a younger sister, Lizzie, and a mother, Brenda. Brenda pulls Trent and Lizzie out of school for the day so that they can go to various thrift stores and search the pockets of the old clothes for money. She gets mad when the kids don’t come up with enough money. They go to McDonald’s, where she can only buy a hamburger for herself and another one for the children to split. They hit another Goodwill, where she again berates the children for their inability to find enough money. Lizzie goes off to play with the gumball machine, while Trent begs his mother to go to the bathroom. She refuses to let him go. Suddenly, Brenda gets in a physical fight with another woman and Trent stands there, unable to help her. He pees himself and Brenda jeers at him, before shoving him into the car. Trent tells Brenda that Lizzie’s still in the store, but Brenda doesn’t care: she says that Lizzie will learn a lesson from getting left behind. Trent decides to hop out of the moving car and run back to Goodwill to save his little sister.