He breaks up with her, and the kids watch as Nikki goes off the deep end. One day, Nikki drops off the kids for a long weekend without warning, and Murdoch has to look after them for four days while she goes off to party.

He agrees and the kids start seeing lots of Murdoch around.Īlthough Murdoch is an awesome surrogate dad-he watches movies with the kids and takes them on picnics-his relationship with Nikki starts to suffer when he realizes that she's unstable. Eventually, Callie discovers his address, but Nikki snatches it away and goes to ask Murdoch out on a date. When they get home, Matthew starts looking for Murdoch. Matthew and his other sister, Callie, are both struck by this simple gesture because they live with an abusive and unpredictable mother, Nikki. The letter begins with the first moment that Matthew saw Murdoch, a man at the grocery store who stood up for a kid who was being abused by his father. The book starts off with Matthew, the main character, saying that he's going to write this letter in order to tell his younger sister Emmy about everything that happened in their family.

The rules of survival