In 1938 in the Minneapolis suburbs of Edina and Morningside, a nine year old boy struggles with multiplication and long division, and also finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. There, his ears pop with information he is not supposed to hear about his fourth grade teacher, Mister Cross, the fifth grade teacher Mrs. Fitzgerald, and a "bunch of stuff about hanky-panky, the cops, blackmail, and important people downtown."