A 22-year-old woman named Olivia Weston—a temporary house mother at Behala’s Mission School—narrates Chapter 1. Father Juilliard has asked her to write down her account. After college she visited Behala while traveling and decided to stay and work on a water-sanitation project. She says she fell in love with the children and their smiles: “I think charity work is the most seductive thing in the world” (83). She can tell she is making a difference. She knows Jun (Rat) and always gives him food. One day Jun brings two friends to see her. It is the night after Raphael is taken.

The boy named Gardo tells her that he wants to visit his grandfather in prison. He says that the police claim his grandfather beat someone up, but they want him out of the way so they can take his house, which they now have. He says they need her to visit him because she is a social worker and the guards may let her in.

She takes Gardo with her to the prison, but first they go to a clothing store, and she buys him clean clothes so that he will make a better impression.