Chapters 1 through 5 Summary

Ellie writes that someone suggested that they should write down everything that's happened as a way of preserving the history of their efforts. The group chose Ellie for that task and she pledges to make her writing as honest and truthful as she possibly can. As she begins to write, she's sitting near a creek on a fallen tree and takes time to wonder why it fell. She notes that it's not rotten and then talks about the creek and the bugs she sees hitting the surface of the water. Then Ellie admits that she's writing about all these things that are unimportant to the story she's supposed to tell simply because she's having trouble starting the story. Ellie says that the story begins a few weeks earlier when she and her best friend Corrie had come up with a plan...