Demon notices Ms. Annie has a hidden goldfish tattoo that he memorizes and could draw, and his crush deepens as warmer weather leads to eating lunch outside. Because Demon cannot finish art work in a single period, Ms. Annie arranges for Demon to come early during lunch for extra time in the Lee High art room, even as Demon feels awkward being around Mr. Armstrong while secretly fixated on Mr. Armstrong’s wife.

To make the schedule work, Ms. Annie sets up rides with Mr. Maldo, a quiet janitor who cleans at the middle school in the mornings and Lee High in the afternoons. Mr. Maldo chats with Ms. Annie and eats lunch in the art room but never speaks to Demon during their rides. Ms. Annie explains that other teachers ignore Mr. Maldo and bluntly defends the dignity of janitorial work, which makes Demon admire her more.

After extra art time, Demon waits at the Lee Career and Tech area with Fish Head and other bused-over seventh graders. Demon observes military recruiters constantly working the halls, pressuring kids with hard questions about poverty and unemployment and presenting enlistment as the solution, which makes the recruitment feel predatory and targeted.

Back in Mr. Armstrong’s “Backgrounds” project, students present family histories tied to coal, with stories of land being bought cheaply, dangerous “low coal” work, scrip pay, black-lung suffering, and fatal explosions. Bettina Cook, wealthy and confident, presents “The Other Side of the Coin,” praising her family’s ties to the Bluebonnet Mine and the company’s civic donations, and sparks arguments about profit, unemployment, and whether outsiders are to blame for coal’s decline.

Mr. Armstrong escalates the lesson by explaining unions and showing how strikes became armed conflict, including the Battle of Blair Mountain, and he links “redneck” to miners’ red bandannas as a badge of solidarity. He then pushes the class to ask why the county has so few other jobs and argues it was engineered: coal companies bought up institutions, let schools rot, and blocked other industries so people would have no alternative but coal. The realization enrages Demon and reframes local despair—disability, addiction, and recruitment—as consequences of a long, deliberate extraction.