The day the roster is announced, Kareem wears his Walton Payton Chicago Bears jersey for good luck and quotes the Quran.

Kareem does not make the team. Disappointed, he stands alone and resists the temptation to rip his jersey off. Austin, another student, strides up to the list, smiles smugly, and saunters away with friends amid cheers.

When school starts in the fall of 2016, the football team walks the hallways together, happy and basking in the spotlight. Kareem stands against the lockers, wishing that he were on the team so that people would notice him.

At the first game, fans are chanting and singing in the stands. However, everyone quickly realizes that the team is not strong. Austin is the quarterback, and his passes fall short as the coach (referred to simply as “Coach”) yells at the team. Fans leave before the game is over. Kareem remembers the Chicago Bears’ last game, which also went poorly.

In late fall, Kareem recalls a book about students who oppose their school’s closure because they do not want to be separated from each other. This reminds him of how lonely he is without Adam, and as the months pass, Kareem spends more time with books than with people. He retreats to the library during lunch to pray and to avoid sitting alone. When he texts Adam, his friend reveals that he is no longer a Bears fan. Kareem wonders if Adam is also moving on from their friendship.

Kareem has been friends with Adam since kindergarten. They learned to throw a football before they could read, and Adam is the one who introduced the Bears to Kareem. Without his friend, Kareem feels lost.

One day, as Kareem reaches for a book he dropped, Austin grabs it. Noting that Kareem is always reading, Austin does not return the book but instead asks Kareem’s name, which makes Kareem feel invisible. Austin asks if Kareem still wants to join the football team, though Kareem is uneasy about Austin referring to him as “K.”; he feels like he is setting aside his Syrian identity.

The football coach is Austin’s father and the middle school gym teacher. Austin promises to get Kareem on the team if he helps him write an essay. That weekend, when Kareem watches the Bears finally win, he screams with excitement and thinks that things are looking better.

During winter break, Kareem plays football outside in the frigid weather by himself. He throws the ball deep. Even though it lands on the ground, he pretends it is a touchdown and imagines celebrating with friends.

Kareem receives a text from Austin right before they are supposed to work on the essay together. Austin asks him to write the essay for him, insisting that it will just be this one time. Despite a sinking feeling, Kareem agrees, and Austin calls him K. again. Frustrated, Kareem hits his football into the street, and it gets run over by a car. It pops and deflates.

When Kareem goes inside his house, he notes Syrian décor side-by-side with American vases. After throwing his football in the garbage, he spies his little brother, Sameer, and then runs up and down the stairs, pretending to train for football. Jameelah, his older sister, yells at him. Meanwhile, the aroma from his mother’s cooking fills the air, as does her Syrian Arabic as she talks on the phone. When Kareem asks her for a new football, she insists that he eat the Syrian dough she has made. Kareem enjoys every bite.

NFL Fact #2 explains how, before each football game, the referee tosses a coin to see who will receive the ball first. When Kareem listens to his parents’ whispers, he hears about the danger of going to Syria; if Kareem’s father (“Baba”) goes, he could be forced into the army. When Kareem’s parents say that they will pray for an unidentified “him,” Kareem is uneasy.

At the end of winter break, the family eats pita and fῡl—boiled and seasoned fava beans—for breakfast. Jameelah gets annoyed when Kareem corrects her grammar, but then she talks about saving the environment. Kareem feels like he lives in the shadow of her accomplishments. When Baba asks about football, Jameelah scoffs that sports cannot change the world. She and Kareem fight.

During Jummah, Friday prayer, the family takes turns reading from the Quran. Kareem struggles with the Arabic. Jameelah laughs, but their parents remind him that reward comes from struggle.

When Mama tells Kareem to finish his homework before prayer, he knows that his mother is the reason he is good at English and loves words. When she studied for her GED a few years ago, he listened as she read stories, learned English, and worked on pronunciations. Upstairs in his room, Kareem sits at his desk to work on his remaining homework. He remembers that he must also write Austin’s essay and rationalizes that it is fine if it means he makes the team in the spring.

Kareem writes Austin’s essay first, focusing on how foreshadowing and an omniscient narrator reveal something sinister in the novel. By the time he writes his own essay, his only idea is a theme of unfairness. In his own life, Kareem concludes that he is not only invisible but also unheard.

When Kareem finishes the essays, his mother reminds him to shower before prayers. He thinks that the holy day is special; he loves sitting next to Baba while the imam shares stories of prophets. He also loves getting ice cream afterward.

Kareem chooses his ice cream toppings based on the alphabet. He started months ago with A for Airheads; however, today he is at “U,” and there are no “U” toppings. He gets sprinkles instead and enjoys his ice cream.

As the family eats ice cream, a woman hits Jameelah’s chair with her cane. Terrified, Mama lowers a beanie over her hijab. Jameelah, however, squares her shoulders. She does not hide her hijab and is proud to be Muslim. The woman tells Jameelah that she is beautiful and walks away. Everyone relaxes until the woman returns to tell her that she does not have to wear the hijab in America. In a shaky but loud voice, Jameelah insists that she wants to wear it. When the woman leaves, Mama tries to take Jameelah’s hand, but Jameelah goes outside.

NFL Fact #3 explains that a football player will kneel after catching a kickoff if he wants play to stop. The phrase “take a knee” also refers to the symbolic gesture by Colin Kaepernick, an NFL quarterback who knelt during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racism.

When Kareem questions the incident, his parents urge him to forget about it. Frustrated by their response, Kareem thinks about how, when a football team plays an away game, it is not always fair.

After ice cream, the family heads to the Masjid (Arabic for “mosque”). There, they volunteer under the guidance of Mama, who also helps refugees with housing, work, English, and food. She tells her friend, Khale Afaf, that a new family will arrive that weekend. As the family sorts through donated clothing, Kareem thinks about his father, a cardiologist, and his mother, who heals people through charity.