Brandon Chavez
Brandon is a nine-year-old boy living in Brooklyn, New York. On September 11, 2001, he accompanies his father to work at the World Trade Center because he has been suspended from school for punching a fellow student. Soon after arriving at his father's top-floor restaurant, Brandon takes the elevator down to Sam Goody, hoping to buy replacement Wolverine claws because he broke his friend's pair. The first hijacked plane hits the North Tower, trapping Brandon in the elevator around the 85th floor. Brandon escapes the elevator and tries to walk up the stairs to reach his father, but discovers the way is blocked by destruction. Brandon links up with Richard, a businessman, and they make their way to the bottom of the building; however, the escape is beset by horrific sights and close calls. Brandon reaches the ground level only to see the North Tower collapse, swallowing his father as it falls. Covered in dust, Richard and Brandon walk to Richard's house in Queens. Richard adopts Brandon, who joins the military at eighteen. In Reshmina's storyline, Brandon is a US Army sergeant who goes by the nickname Taz.
Reshmina
Reshmina is a twelve-year-old girl who lives in the mountains of Afghanistan. Her first language is Pashto, but she is committed to learning English, even though her mother discourages education for girls. On September 11, 2019, Afghan National Army soldiers and Americans arrive to search her village for a rumored stockpile of Taliban weapons. Reshmina is inspired to meet an Afghan woman who works as a translator; in Reshmina's community, no woman works outside the home. The search results in a Taliban ambush, and Reshmina ends up giving refuge to Taz, a wounded American soldier who asks for her help. The decision to keep Taz in the family home prompts Reshmina's twin brother to alert the Taliban, and Reshmina spends much of the book chasing down her brother to try to convince him not to betray their family and village. While she fails to convince Pasoon, Reshmina gets back to her village in time to save her family members and Taz before the Taliban strikes. At the novel's climax, Reshmina blames Taz for representing all the invaders who have brought destruction to her country and who killed her sister on her wedding day. While she knows there is a risk the Taliban will take power again if the Americans leave, she expresses frustration with the Americans helping with one hand while holding a gun in the other.
Taz Lowery
Taz is an American sergeant who arrives in Reshmina's village to search homes for a rumored stockpile of Taliban weapons. When the Taliban attacks, Taz is temporarily blinded. He asks Reshmina for help, which she reluctantly gives him because of her people's pashtunwali code of honor. Taz is kept in Reshmina's home, where the adults attend to his wounds. Able to converse in English, Reshmina learns that Taz’s nickname comes from the stuffed Tasmanian Devil toy that he keeps strapped to his uniform. When the Taliban attacks the village, Reshmina's family sneaks Taz out of the house in a burqa. Reshmina later blames Taz for bringing death and destruction to her community. He limply tries to defend the US's investment in Afghan infrastructure, but then admits that he longer knows why he is in her country. Taz reveals that his real name is Brandon Chavez, and he joined the military because of his experience surviving the 9/11 attacks. Taz gives Reshmina his Tasmanian Devil toy before they part ways.
Pasoon
Pasoon is Reshmina’s twin brother. At twelve, Pasoon is attracted to joining the Taliban, which will pay him far more than he can earn as a goat herder. Pasoon is excited to tell Reshmina that the Taliban spread a rumor of hidden weapons to lure the ANA and Americans into the village for an ambush. Reshmina hopes Pasoon's radicalization can be avoided, but when he discovers his family is giving refuge to an American, Pasoon runs to tell the Taliban. Reshmina's attempts at intervening fail, and Pasoon betrays his family, risking their lives in the Taliban's retaliation. At the end of the novel, Reshmina sees Pasoon wave to her in the distance, but she ignores him.
Leo Chavez
Leo is Brandon's father. He is a restaurant manager at the Windows on the World restaurant, located at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. When Brandon is suspended from school, Leo brings him to work with him on the morning of 9/11. Leo is not harmed when the plane hits the building, but the crash is so destructive that he and his colleagues aren't able to walk down the stairs on several floors. Once it becomes clear to Leo that he isn't going to be airlifted from the roof, he tells Brandon to stay strong and to survive without him. Leo dies when the North Tower collapses.
Richard Lowery
Richard is a businessman with an office at the World Trade Center. Brandon and Leo meet Richard on their way into the North Tower on the morning of September 11, 2001; Richard nearly drops the briefcase and coffee he is carrying, but Brandon helps him. Richard later pulls Brandon to safety when he sees him crawling on a ledge of the damaged building. Richard and Brandon stick together as they link up with other survivors and make their way out of the building before it collapses. When Leo is on the phone with Brandon, he asks to speak to Richard. Richard promises to take Brandon home and look after him. Richard and his wife later adopt Brandon, who takes their surname.
Anaa
Anaa is Reshmina's grandmother. She lives in the same house as Baba, Mor, and Reshmina and her siblings. When Reshmina becomes frustrated with her mother, Anaa tells Reshmina about the long history of Mor's family members becoming wounded or killed as casualties of conflicts in Afghanistan. Anaa also discusses the more socially liberated time in which she grew up, before the Soviet invasion and the rise of the Taliban. Anaa shocks Reshmina when she says Afghan women even wore miniskirts in public in the 1960s.
Mor
Mor is Reshmina's mother. Having grown up in the 1980s when the Taliban was in control of the country, Mor's idea of what a woman's life should comprise is more restrictive than Anaa's, who grew up in a more socially liberated time. Mor frustrates Reshmina because she prefers her female children to focus on housework rather than their education.
Baba
Baba is Reshmina's father. Although he is not particularly old, the rugged landscape in which he has grown up has carved "lines and wrinkles of an older man into his reddish-brown face." He also has a gray beard. He wears "baggy pants, a long olive-green tunic, and a gray turban." When Reshmina leads Taz back to their house, Baba honors Taz's request for refuge, risking his own life to help the wounded American soldier. Despite walking with a wooden crutch, Baba makes the long trek on foot to the ANA base to tell them there is a wounded American in need of evacuation.
Mariam
Mariam is a translator who works alongside the Afghan National Army and American soldiers. When the ANA and the Americans search Reshmina's family home, Mariam is there to translate between English and Pashto. Reshmina is delighted to see an Afghan woman working an important job outside the home—a rare sight in Reshmina's community. Although Mariam dies in the Taliban attack on Reshmina's village, Reshmina dreams of continuing her own English language learning to become an independent woman like Mariam when she is older.
