Answer: Chapter 1: A Face at the Window
The thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle begins her narration of the novel with a flashback to the moment when she and her father first moved to Euclid, Ohio from their farm in By banks, Kentucky. Salamanca (Sal for short) is horrified when she sees the small, cookie-cutter houses pressed up against each other and realizes how different this place is from their the farm, with its trees, swimming hole, wide-open spaces, cows, and chickens. Her alarm increases when she sees Margaret Cadaver, a friend of her father's who helped him find a job in Euclid. Sal begins to panic as her father urges her out of the car and into Margaret's house. In her consternation, she scans the houses around her and spots a small face in an upstairs window. The face, Sal explains, belongs to Phoebe Winterbottom, who becomes Sal's friend in Euclid. Sal flashes back to a point more recent in time, after she and Phoebe became friends, but prior to the moment of narration, when, during a long car trip with her grandparents, Sal told them the story of what happened to her and Phoebe in Euclid. Sal then compares Phoebe's story to a plaster wall in Sal's farmhouse in Kentucky, at which Sal's father had begun chipping away shortly after Sal's mother left her and her father. Sal remembers that on the night she and her father had found that her mother was not returning, he had chipped at the wall all night and found a brick fireplace behind the wall. Sal explains that, as the fireplace was hidden behind the wall, her own story is hidden behind Phoebe's.
Chapter 2: The Chickabiddy Starts a Story
Sal now turns to the story of the trip she took with Gram and Gramps across the country. The trio plans to travel from Ohio to Lewiston, Idaho in order to "see Momma," who is "resting peacefully" in Lewiston. Sal darkly suspects her father has endorsed this trip to give her father and Margaret time to be alone. Sal is overcome with a sense of urgency and fear: she feels they must make it to Lewiston by Momma's birthday, which is in seven days, and she knows her grandparents have a reputation for disastrous experiences in cars. She begins the trip praying intently, but eventually her grandparents distract her with a plea for a story. Finally, Sal abandons her prayers and agrees to tell them Phoebe's story.