Coyote is a 12-year-old girl who has a story to tell and is trying to decide at what point she should begin. She decides to commence on the day she secretly adopted a kitten: “It all started with Ivan” (1). She relates being at a gas station in Oregon on a very hot summer day. She describes her appearance and what she’s doing as she walks into the convenience store to get a Slurpee.

On the way out of the convenience store, she has a quick exchange with two boys who are giving away kittens. She has a long braid of hair down her back and wears t-shirts, greasy blue jeans, and large, round sunglasses. Coyote travels with her father, who she addresses as Rodeo, instead of Dad. He is skinny, has a beard, and wears a bandana. They travel about in an old, beat-up school bus they converted into a permanent home. Coyote and her father seldom have a set plan concerning where they’re going next in the bus.

Coyote sneaks the kitten onto the bus without her father knowing about it and calls him Ivan for the main character in her favorite book, The One and Only Ivan.