Eddie Profitt is also a teenage boy. He is 14 years old. He is best friends with Billy and the boys have been friends since childhood. Eddie is really a genius, but nobody knows this because he fails his IQ test and doesn't get very good grades in school.
Primarily, this is because Eddie has a hard time focusing. He starts thinking about one thing, and then this leads him on a tangent to think of something else, and so on and so forth. His thought process prohibits him from ever really getting anything done.
Billy's father figures out that Eddie is a genius. He starts taking Eddie into his janitor closet after school to help Eddie with his homework. Eddie is also the son of the local Chevron gas station owner. During the summer between eighth and ninth grade, Billy finds his father dead at the gas stations. A few weeks later, Eddie finds his best friend Billy dead too—both from tragic accidents.
Eddie deals with his grief and loss by going mute—so he completely stops talking. Eddie allows fear to lead him through life for the next few months, until Billy's spirit shows up and tried to help Eddie through the grief process. Eventually, Eddie takes on the reverend and English teacher who tries to get a book that Eddie relates to banned from the high school curriculum.
