Think back over the chapters. On Sunday morning a cricket breakfasts like a little king — bread, sugar, a soda the size of a raindrop. A man who has taught music all his life hears one chirp and goes still, as if the station had spoken. That same afternoon, in a shop smelling of incense a world away from Times Square, an old man lifts down a cage built for an emperor’s cricket and tells of a truthful man who became the first of Chester’s kind. By suppertime the cricket has a palace, a silver bell, and two prophecies — and he has not yet performed a single song.

In China, the cricket has been an honored guest for more than a thousand years. Long ago, farmers listened for the first cricket song of the season, which told them the fields were warming and it was nearly planting time. In the palaces, crickets were prized for their voices: emperors and fine ladies kept singing crickets in beautiful cages of bamboo, gourd, and gold, and carried them close to enjoy their music through the autumn. Some cages were elaborate little palaces themselves, carved with dragons or shaped like tiny towers.

A cricket in the house came to be seen as a happy omen — a sign of luck, plenty, and cheerfulness under that roof. Poets wrote verses to their crickets; children raised them tenderly; and a fine singer might be treasured like a jewel. Chinese families who later settled in cities far away carried the custom with them, along with their food, their festivals, and their music. So when an old shopkeeper meets a boy who keeps a cricket, he is not meeting a stranger with a strange pet. He is meeting the newest keeper of a very old and lucky tradition.

No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.