Summary

Jerome Rogers, a 12 year-old boy has been shot and killed. He sees everything happening around him as a ghost, floating outside of his body. He thinks about how small he looks in death and how he always thought he was bigger than he seems while lying flat on the snowy ground. Jerome’s mother runs toward him while screaming. People begin edging closer and snapping pictures and videos with their phones. Jerome thinks about how unfair it is that he was not paid much attention while he was alive but now he is famous in death. The news story that comes out the next day in the Chicago Tribune quotes the officer as saying that he had no choice to shoot Jerome because he had a gun.

In Chapter 2, the novel flashes back to before the shooting. Jerome’s mother makes him promise...