The story starts of while they are playing their first baseball game of the
season against the Crazy Horse Electrics. They decide to put beer in the
opposition team's water bottles as a prank, so that they could win. After that
Willie decides to go fishing with his dad. They have deep conversations, and
they start talking about why Willie's mom does not fish like she used too. Then
they get into talking about Missy, Willie's little sister who died of SIDS
(Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). After that the book cuts into another baseball
game, they are playing against the Crazy Horse Electrics. Sal, a big guy on the
Crazy Horse, and Johnny get into a verbal argument, and then Johnny says
something personal about him and he wound up and decked Johnny one. They break
it up and continue the game. When Willie was about to pitch he looses his
balance and Sal hits a good pitch. Then out of pure luck and talent, Willie
stretches himself out and robs Sal of a sure triple. Willie becomes a minor
legend. On their way home from school Jenny and Willie hook up. Then on the
weekend, Jenny, Johnny, Willie and his family decide to go to the lake. Willie
and Jenny set the table for a picnic when Johnny is out skiing. Willies mom
complains about him never being safe enough. Next it is Willie's turn to
water-ski. As Willie was doing a 360° turn, he caught the tips of his skis
under the water and he crashed. Willies dad was in shock, Jenny had to give
Willie mouth to mouth, and save his life. The left the boat, got into the
vehicle, and drove to the hospital. Willie ends up with a speech impediment, and
problems walking. He ends up doing crazy things, like acid, and drinking. He
talks to a counselor whom he really likes. Willie does not want to go into a
Special Ed class that the school is referring him to. He feels hopeless, and
even jealous of his girlfriend for her athletics. He tries to play racquetball,
but his dad gets frustrated with him. That night he hears his parents arguing
over him. He hears his dad say that he thinks it would have been easier if
Willie had died in the accident. From there he suspects Jenny and Petey of
getting together, and finds out that they are. Willie freaks out on Petey when
he trips of Willies cane, and then Petey unintentionally turns all of the
attention over to Willie. Willie decides that night that he is going to run
away. He goes to the bank, and tells the teller that he is going to buy a VCR,
then he goes to the bus depot. He starts off on the bus with no regret, and no
guilt. He arrives in Oakland, and has to take a bus transfer from there to get
to the bus that will take him to San Francisco. On his way to the bus he meets a
gang called the Jo Boys. They try to take his money, but when the bus came he
jumped right on it to get away. They get on the bus too. He talks to the bus
driver, and the bus driver says that he will try to stall the gang, but that's
about all he can do. So he tries to run away as fast as he can with his
handicap, and they catch up, beat him up, and take all four hundred dollars from
Willie. Willie passes out. When he wakes up, there is the bus driver. He helps
him up, then takes him to a restaurant where he agrees to let Willie stay the
night, and ONLY the night. Willie ends up staying for good, under the agreement
that he will clean up, and stay out of Lacey's (The bus driver) way. Willie
finds out when Lacey says Human Relations Management, that he is a pimp. The
next day Lacey and Willie go to look at the school. Willie goes in while Lacy
stays in the car. It is a private school, and the owner, André, offers free
tuition as long as Willie will help keep it clean. André explains that the
school is for people who have any handicaps, physical disabilities, or things
that cause them to have learning problems. So Willie accepts and is getting a
tour, when a tall gangly blond kid, named Jack comes up and starts repeating
over and over again, "This school is a chicken-*censored* rip-off".
Finally André calms him down, and they finish the tour. After a few days,
Willie begins to actually try to be normal again. Though he is slow, Jack asked
him to play a game of basketball. They went to an abandoned court, and started a
game. This was when Jack started to call himself the "Telephone Man".
People start to watch the game, and Willie starts to get nervous. Finally the
game ends, and Willie goes into the office with the Phys Ed teacher, Lisa. She
asks him if he wants some help with getting control back. He says that he
doesn't have any money, but he finds out she is doing it for a university paper.
So they start with learning how to find his center. Willie stays in Lacey's
apartment and practices dancing to some horrid music. He is learning how to
place one foot in front of the other with applying the same amount of pressure
on both sides. Suddenly Lacey comes home with a girl from Willie's school,
Angel. Lacey is extremely drunk, and has the girl around the waste. Willie
figured it out. She was a whore. Willie goes to bad, and then wakes up to
screaming. He runs into Lacey's room to find him beating Angel. He takes his
cane, and pounds it across Lacey until Lacey is flat out cold. Then Angle runs
and calls the ambulance, and gets mad at Willie. She tells Willie that when
Lacey wakes up he is going to kill Willie. So the next day Willie goes to the
hospital. André had offered for Willie to stay in the basement of the school if
he needed too a little while ago. Willie went in there, and he saw Lacey. At
first Lacey was pissed off, but when Willie said that he would move, Lacey asked
him to stay. Later on Willie was practicing basketball again. He was doing it a
lot. André saw him and said that he was starting to look like a player. Willie
rebounds the compliment to Lisa, because she was the one who was helping him so
much. André asked him why he doesn't hang around with the kids. Willie replied
that he doesn't do drugs. André gets a little angry and says that that is not
the only way to get into the school. They play a little more, and Willie says
that he will try to make friends. Later that night, after Willie finished
polishing Lacey's car, Willie gets a phone call. It is Lacey's ex-wife, and she
told him to tell Lacey that his son is still rotting away. Will decides to relay
the message just to "your ex wife called." Willie had never pried into
Lacey's personal life, but when Lacey came home, he read the message. Then
Willie and Lacey get into his car, and drive down to an old facility. When they
look in they see Lacey's son, staring into blind air, damaged permanently. Lacey
had abused him when he was younger. Lacey told Willie that Then Willie asks if
that was the reason that Lacey took him in was to make up for what happened to
his son. The next day at school, Lisa told Willie to ask Lacey for a hundred and
forty dollars, for a special course. She said to tell Lacey that all the
students were taking it, and Willie was getting a deal. So Lacey gave him the
money, and the next morning Lisa picked up Willie, and they went to a gym to
work out, then Willie got introduced to Sammy, who was Lisa's
"boyfriend". He taught Willie how to protect himself, and to use his
"set-backs" as an advantage. Later on, Willie saw Angel, and he asked
her if she was still working for Lacey. She said that she still was. He told her
that he had talked to Lacey, and he said he would promise to tell her that she
could go. He had told her, but she didn't want to give it up. It was the only
way that she could get money, and she had been raped when she was younger.
During the weekends, Willie and a bunch of people would go to the school and fix
it up. Then one day, Willie went into the school, and found spray painted all
over Jo Boys. He cleaned it up, and left. Then the next morning he found it
again, and left it for André to find. Hawk got really angry about this, and was
going to beat the Jo Boys up. Then Willie went to the washroom to find Jack in
there, sick to his stomach from eating Bisquick and strawberry-scented shampoo.
He told him to wait there while he grabbed him some clothes from the lost and
found, and then sent him to run home and get changed. Willie went back to class,
and then when he heard, "fight". Hawk ran up and found Jack on the
floor and the lead Jo Boy, Kam, against the wall. So Hawk beat him up. Then Hawk
convinced Willie into letting them come into the school, since Willie had the
keys, and wait for the Jo Boys to come, and they would catch them in the act,
and beat them up. So that night Willie went, and they never showed up. The Jo
Boys came and set the school on fire. Willie beat up Kam in the dark with his
cane, and then went back and got him before he burned in the fire. Kam got sent
to a Juvenile Delinquent Center. Willie was a hero. Then the book cuts to
graduation. Willie thanks all the people that helped him along the way, and the
next day he heads home. When he gets there, his parents are divorced, his dad is
a drunk. His mom has remarried to a guy named Don. His dad doesn't want anything
to do with him. Jenny is still angry at him because everyone thought that he was
dead, and she felt guilty. He works things out with his family, and then goes to
see his old house. When he gets there he sees a tiny baby, in his room. He
sticks his finger out for her to grab and she does. He begins to cry. The mother
says that her name is Melinda. He says, "Thank-you, she's beautiful",
turns around, leaves and head back to southern Oakland.