Summary

Prologue – In first person, present tense narration, the book’s central character (Hermione) describes her intense, relatively new habit of running, and how one day after her run, she visited the church that she occasionally attends with her not-always available father. She comments on the surprise with which the minister (Reverend Rob) greets her, and how he seems unusually comfortable as he sits down to talk with her. “People,” she says, “are never comfortable around me anymore” (ii). The prologue concludes with Hermione asking the minister to not ask people to pray for her.

Part 1 opens with a quote from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date” (iv).

Chapter 1 – In continued first person, present tense narration, Hermione describes her arrival at cheerleading camp (Camp Manitouwabing), celebrating the fact that she is captain (a title and...