Dodo arrives in Pennhurst’s Ward C-1 and spends weeks in a drugged haze, overwhelmed by filth, noise, and rough handling while immobilized in traction. His stillness helps his injured body begin to heal, but his isolation deepens as he cannot tell attendants from patients and cannot perform basic tasks.

Across the bars of a nearby crib, Dodo connects with a spastic boy he calls Monkey Pants. Although neither knows formal sign language, Dodo’s near deafness and their shared loneliness push them to invent ways to communicate. Monkey Pants repeatedly shows Dodo a treasured blue marble, and Dodo—who associates marbles with Miss Chona and home—obsessively tries to learn where it came from.

Over days and weeks of trial and error, the boys build a crude system of gestures for “yes,” “no,” “danger,” and more. Their real breakthrough comes when Monkey Pants devises a one-handed alphabet: five letters per finger (and six on the pinkie) to cover A–Z. Using common words like “apple,” Dodo confirms the code, and the two finally gain a working language.

Dodo immediately uses the new alphabet to ask about the marble. Monkey Pants painstakingly spells the answer: the marble came from my mother. When Dodo asks where she is, Monkey Pants abruptly signals “danger,” reacting to someone approaching.

A tall, powerful Black attendant appears at the foot of Dodo’s crib. The man questions Dodo, strokes him with a falsely gentle touch, then—seeing the nurses’ station empty—lifts Dodo and peers under his gown while praising his appearance. After the attendant leaves, Monkey Pants frantically spells a warning: the man is Son of Man, and he is very bad.