- Poor Billy can't sleep. Remember how he was supposed to be working on that poetry homework? Well that just didn't happen. There were more important things like water fights and going to Ruby's Cupboard for dinner and fantasizing about pulling an all-nighter this summer to think about.
- So he gets up and finds his mom in the living room. When he shows her his two drafted poems, she's pretty impressed at his cleverness.
- But since Ms. Silver said he should make a list of what Mama likes, Billy hops to it. She's got a pretty conventional list: coffee, chocolate, rainy days. (Us, too, Mama, us, too.)
- Out of nowhere there's a bang on the window. When Billy and his mom investigate, they find a dead bird. The poor little fellow flew right into the window. So they bury it together, which is sad but also a kind of sweet mother/son moment. Plus Billy gets to learn another thing his mom likes: quiet. Mama says that when it's quiet you can hear oodles of stuff, which sort of makes it not quiet, but it also makes quietness extra cool. And when Billy starts listening to the quiet, he agrees.
- And the best part is that Billy now has some inspiration for his poem. He writes one about how his mom loves the quiet and how the quiet isn't actually totally quiet. That sucker gets a nice smiley face from Ms. S, too.