The novel opens with a memory from an uncertain time, a hazy look back at a moment in Arthur and Jake’s childhood. “Arthur Dunn was thirteen or fourteen” (2) writes Lawson, framing the story that follows as almost outside of time. The scene opens with Arthur’s brother, Jake, who is “eight or nine” (2), pestering Arthur to play a game that Jake has invented called “Knives” (2).

Lawson frames the two brothers as opposites, with Jake free-spirited and goofing off in destructive ways while Arthur, who doesn’t want to play, says “I’m busy” (2) and carries on with “whatever task his father had set him to” (2). Jake is relentless, though, and eventually Arthur gives in and agrees to play.

The two stand apart and throw Jake’s big hunting knife at each other’s feet, trying to get as close as possible to the other’s foot without actually hitting it. Wherever the knife lands, the player must spread their legs so their foot touches it, then it’s their turn to throw. Whoever falls down first (from spreading their legs) loses.

The climax of the scene comes not when the knife hits Arthur’s foot but right before that, when he first senses that Jakes hates him: “The thought came into his mind–not drifting gently in but appearing suddenly, fully formed, like a cold hard round little pebble–that Jake hated him” (4).