Billy is a 13-year-old boy who lives in Fort Pierce, Florida, with his mother and college-age sister. He holds an unusually intense interest in snakes and is skilled at handling them. Billy has also experienced an unusual family history, for his father, Dennis, abandoned the family when Billy was only four. His mother’s interests are just as eccentric as those of her son; she is fixated on bald eagle nests and routinely relocates her son and daughter whenever she finds a new nesting site that she wants to observe more closely. As a result, Billy is a loner who doesn’t make friends at the various schools he attends over the years.

There is one other distinctive feature of Billy’s personality. He is good at protecting himself. Because he is fascinated by snakes, he knows how to catch and release them safely. He also uses them to intimidate bullies at school. Billy refuses to be cowed, and he dislikes seeing others bullied. Often, he intervenes to help smaller, weaker children when the school authorities do nothing to protect them. This same attitude is shared by his father, who has made it his mission in life to protect endangered animals from poachers.