- This chapter starts with Adina waking up on a beach while another girl leans over her with concern. We learn that Adina is Miss New Hampshire and the other girl is Mary Lou, Miss Nebraska.
- They're both pretty dazed. They keep talking about their designer shoes while lifeless bodies and evening dresses float by them in the water.
- A girl with a southern twang calls for the survivors' attention and has them arrange themselves in a horseshoe formation. How very organized. She's Taylor, Miss Texas, and she's pretty bossy. She leads the girls in a prayer (except for Adina, who is Jewish).
- Adina suggests a role call to see who has survived. Twelve girls identify themselves. Besides Adina, Mary Lou, and Taylor, the girls include Shanti (Miss California), Jennifer (Miss Michigan), and Petra (Miss Rhode Island). At least, those are the ones worth knowing about.
- The girls are organized into two teams: one to tend to the wounded and salvage supplies, and the other to search the jungle for survivors. They name their teams the Sparkle Ponies and the Lost Girls. Inspirational.
- To encourage girls to join the search party, Taylor invokes the pageant sponsor Ladybird Hope, a former pageant winner whose platform is Being Perfect in Every Way. Ladybird had saved the Miss Teen Dream pageant by securing sponsors to prevent it being replaced by a reality show about Amish girls called Girls Gone Rumspringa. Sounds, um, wild.