Over three days, the fourteen-year-old artist and janitor Christian painted a vivid mural behind the gym: butterflies, dragons, angels reaching for Joar and Ted, birds whose wind ruffled Ali’s hair, and a multitude of living skulls. Christian encouraged the boy, comparing the work to Basquiat and quoting artists like Frida Kahlo and Leonardo da Vinci. He rejected the boy’s belief that he was “wrong,” insisting he was an artist who painted feelings, not appearances, and urged him to protect the fragile light of art. They planned to keep painting, and Christian gave the boy his mother’s phone number, telling him to call if he ever needed help.

A brief interlude recounts Christian’s relationship with his mother, an art-loving teacher who raised him after fleeing war and taught him that art was their homeland. Christian struggled with addiction despite rehab attempts, yet his mother secured him the janitor job. Ecstatic after meeting the boy, Christian phoned his mother from a party to say he had found “one of us,” quoting Ragnar Sandberg: “He paints like the birds sing.” The next night, the police called Christian’s mother with news of his death from a heart attack while dancing.

The artist waited all the next day by the mural, then retreated to Ted’s basement, drawing all night as Joar, Ali, and Ted shielded him with their presence. The following morning, Joar told the group about Christian’s death; the artist ran to the wall and found two men painting the mural white. He saw the Owl watching from his classroom; the teacher had reported the mural as graffiti and arranged its removal.

Christian’s mother endured an unbearable funeral and later received a silent, sobbing phone call. The next morning, a drawing was placed on Christian’s grave: Christian smiling on a ladder with the words “Like the birds sing,” which she kept by her bedside. The phone did not ring again for months.

Through spring, Joar, Ali, and Ted took the artist to the pier daily, trying to help him draw, but he could not; he failed art and withdrew. As summer began, he seemed unlikely to survive his grief. Then Joar found a newspaper ad for an art competition on the first day of vacation, giving the friends and the artist a path to begin again.