The chapter opens with a description of a nighttime walk. The narrator tells us that he is on his way home from hanging out with a girl named Yamada. He asks the girl what she is doing, and the girl tells him that she is going to buy ice cream. He tells her that he has eaten so much that he was planning to eat two, but thanks him for the ice cream he bought. The girl asks him how tall he is now, and he says that he thinks he had another spurt of growth. She says that she wishes he would give her some height, because she thinks he is just an eighth-grader. He says that the girl was pretty tiny when she was in eighth grade, and that he wishes she would give him some height too. She asks him if he was a lit-tle taller than she was, and when he says he was, she says that is his fault. She tells him to go back to the store, and buy a new ice cream, and then they can go to school together.