This story concerns brothers Timothy (age 12) and Wallow (age 14) as they go on a quest to find out what happened to their sister Olivia, who disappeared into the sea. The story begins shortly after the boys discover the “diabolical goggles,” which are pink girl’s swimming goggles that they found in a wrecked boat in Gannon’s Boat Graveyard (26). These allow Timothy to see the ghost of sea creatures underwater, though they do not work for Wallow in the open ocean.

Timothy, who narrates the story, describes how their parents met while birdwatching and named all their children after birds: Timothy Sparrow, Waldo Swallow (Wallow), and Olivia Lark. They used to take their children on bird excursions but have stopped since Olivia’s death. They frequently travel to the Third World to distract themselves from their pain, leaving the boys with Granana, who subsists on mostly bananas because she has no teeth.

Timothy explains that “Olivia disappeared on a new-moon night,” which means “our grief is cyclical, synced with the lunar cycles. It accordions out as the moon slivers away. On new-moon nights, it rises with the tide” (31). The last time the boys saw their sister was at twilight, when they left her alone after a day of crab-sledding.