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
Big Dreams
M.C. has everything he wants: a mountain to call his own, a best friend with whom he can telepathically communicate, a family that he's seriously devoted to. What else could he possibly need? Oh right: This life of his is threatened. There's this spoil-heap above his house that might slide down and destroy everything. So things are far from hunky-dory for M.C.—he's got a major life decision on his hands. Should he stay or should he go? And that right there, Shmoopers, is how you set a story up.
Rising Action
Here Comes the Girl
Enter: The girl of M.C.'s (limited) dreams. She's outdoorsy, independent, sassy, and older than M.C. Oh—and she's cute from what M.C. can tell. So should M.C. leave Sarah's Mountain or stay? Hey, who's thinking about the spoil-heap when there's a girl in the picture, right? Lurhetta's entrance into the story takes M.C. away from the reality of his dilemma. That may not be a bad thing for a short while, but it's not like a romance with her will delay the inevitable. Plus, he doesn't even know if she's into him like he's into her. What to do, what to do? Talk about complications…
Climax
Where's Lurhetta?
Looks like M.C.'s got ninety-nine problems, and the girl definitely isn't one of them. On the second night, Lurhetta is supposed to return to M.C.'s house after her visit with the Killburns, but she never shows up. M.C. looks for her, only to find that she's pulled her campsite. Whatever romantic fantasies M.C. had are totally dashed now, which means M.C.'s just not going to be the same guy anymore…
Falling Action
A Boy and A Knife
Lurhetta isn't completely insensitive to M.C.'s feelings, though, and she leaves behind her knife for M.C. (or at least, he assumes she left it for him), so M.C. makes full use of it. What does that mean? The knife becomes something like a supernatural antenna that literally leads M.C. to the final act of the story…
Resolution
"Put Another Brick in The Wall"
What M.C. does with Lurhetta's knife is completely unexpected, and yet it makes perfect sense: He starts digging with it so that he can pile up enough dirt to make a wall. Why a wall? Well, M.C.'s not going to leave the mountain anymore. He's going to fight to save it and that means building a wall to block the spoil-heap from his house. Ta-dah—problem solved.