On his first day of school, Antonio wakes with a sick feeling in his stomach; his parents are bickering about his future, and it is only after he hears Ultima enter the kitchen that he can rouse himself. Breakfast is clouded by Gabriel's insistence that Antonio is a Márez and María's fierce claim that he is a Luna, reminding her husband that long ago, when Ultima offered the "objects of life" to Antonio, the baby chose a pen and paper. Seemingly, Antonio is destined to be a scholar. Gabriel reluctantly agrees, nostalgically recalling happier times — before there was education, or fences, or railroads, or roads — when there was only the vast, windy plains of the llano.
Leaving for school and leaving his parents and Ultima behind is difficult; Antonio feels as though he will never see them again. Impulsively he dashes down the pebbled goat path toward the bridge and, half-way across, is challenged to a race by a small, thin boy, called the Vitamin Kid. For a moment in the school yard, he feels lost in a sea of noisy children, but by noon, he has discovered with great pride that he can write his name. However, when Miss Maestas takes him to the front of the room and introduces him, speaking in English, the other children laugh. Antonio winces, feeling alone and alien. Later, the children laugh at the Mexican food that his mother prepared for his lunch. Behind the school building, Antonio finds a few other students who don't understand English, who feel like outcasts because they also are Mexican. In silence, they fight the loneliness that gnaws at their souls.
