It's a sad tale, with lots of accidental death, suicide attempts, mental illness, and shoplifting. Small tells David stories about her life. That spring, he and his mother go to Indiana to visit her parents.He imagines that he's being sucked into his drawing to live with cartoon characters. A gang of kids bullies him for pretending to be a girl, so he goes home and draws.He ties a yellow towel around his head, pretending it's Alice's blonde hair, and goes outside to play on the playground. David's not so into tumor pictures, so he decides to play Alice in Wonderland.
Among the things they see: human genitalia and a neck with a giant tumor growing out of it. David and Ted go into their dad's den to look at medical books. One day she goes out to play golf and leaves Ted in charge. The next day, the hospital calls to say his shoes have been found, but his mom's still angry. In trying to escape the imaginary fetus monster, David leaves his shoes behind when he gets home, his mom slaps him for forgetting them. As he stares at the fetuses, he imagines that one of them opens its eyes, looks at him, climbs out of its jar, and chases him down the hallway. He rides the elevator, slams wheel chairs together, and goes sock-skating in a hallway with a series of dead fetuses displayed in jars. David goes exploring the hospital by himself. David's mom takes David and Ted to the hospital one night to wait for his dad to get off work. His dad is giving him X-ray treatments for his sinus problems, which was apparently a thing 1950s people thought would help. We see David in the hospital where his dad works. We see his grudging mom come into his room, give him medicine, and hand him his teddy bear. David's way of expressing himself without speaking is getting sick. (Are you beginning to sense that this family has communication problems?). He introduces us to his family: his mom, who coughs and slams cupboards instead of talking, his radiologist dad, who punches a punching bag instead of talking, and his brother Ted, who plays the drums instead of talking. We zoom in from the Detroit skyline to David's neighborhood, then his street, then his house, where we see him lying on the floor drawing pictures.
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