The setting is in a Southern US state, on a farm/ plantation and Old Woman Swamp. The characters are Doodle, the narrator (Doodle's brother) and mom and dad.
Doodle (the narrator's little brother) was born with difficult challenges in his life and wasn't able to do many things so the narrator didn't accept him how Doodle was born
Doodle now knows how to walk and the narrator is convinced he can teach other stuff to doodle. One day Doodle saw a scarlet ibis while eating dinner the bird was injured and not ok. Once the scarlet ibis hit the ground and died Doodle developed a connection between the bird and him.