Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
Cross Yourself
In a new boarding school called Rothborne, Torey Adams gets used to life away from his small hometown, Steepleton, and all the weird stuff that happened to him there the previous year. He sits thinking about how his life has changed, while he prepares an email to someone named Alex Healy and attaches a document called Creed.doc for the person to read in case they happen to know anything about the mysterious disappearance of Christopher Creed, the local weirdo whom Torey is searching for.
While he is doing this, a weirdo at his new school, Leo, barges into his room and shoots a ton of questions at him that make Torey uncomfortable. Finally, when Leo crosses all social boundaries, Torey tells him to have some decency and respect. After Leo leaves all hurt, Torey dives in to read Creed.doc, which he hasn't read in a year, and which is all about the disappearance of Chris Creed. The stage is set for the mystery of Chris's disappearance to unfold.
Rising Action
Rise and Sing Out
After Christopher Creed goes missing, gossip begins to circulate about his possible suicide or potential murder, and Torey finds that he isn't the only one fed up with small-town talk. His long-ago friend, Ali, is the only person he feels comfortable talking to and they discover that Chris's mom, Mrs. Creed, is probably the most to blame for whatever's happened to her son, despite the fact that Torey and many other folks beat up Chris all his life for being an odd duck.
Torey feels compassion for Chris and Ali, who's a recent outcast herself along with her new boyfriend, Bo, who's basically the most feared outcast of them all. Together, Torey, Ali, and Bo try to figure out what happened to Creed, as well as try to save Bo from Mrs. Creed's wrath and appetite for the boy's destruction. Torey ditches his old friends in favor of the new ones that no one likes (read: Ali and Bo), and his old friends grow suspicious of his dealings with the town bruiser and his girlfriend.
Climax
The Descent into Hell
The biggest and meanest gossip in school, Renee, accuses Bo and Torey of murdering Chris Creed. Torey's friend Alex tries to warn him, while also casting blame on Bo. Torey blows up at his former friend, and goes in search of Chris's body to prove his new friend, Bo's, innocence. When he does, he follows an Indian ghost (just roll with this one), accidentally overturns a boulder, crushes his leg, and discovers a dead body that he believes to be burning. Yup—we're definitely in climax territory.
Falling Action
Kneel and Bow Your Head
In the hospital, we learn that Torey won't eat because everything smells burnt, and he won't sleep because he's terrified of nightmares. Instead he keeps himself distracted from life by saying silly rhymes. We learn that the body he found actually belonged Bob Haines, the father of a boy who disappeared long ago. People still gossip about Torey and Bo, but Torey ignores it as much as he can. He can't stand people in Steepleton any longer and doesn't go back to school.
Resolution
The Body of Chris
Thanks to the website he started and the eighty emails he's sent along with the attachment of Creed.doc to various people he thinks might be Chris Creed, Torey now has a collection of responses that he's posted online. He gives them awards a la high school yearbook superlatives. The final one we get to read is definitely from Chris Creed, who now goes by Victor Adams. We learn that he doesn't want to be found and is living with his aunts. He also appreciates what Torey wrote—he did indeed find his body.