In chapter one the main character Maia Wojciechowska wakes up from a dream to the sound of a plane. She thinks it is her father's, but when she runs outside with her new puppy to see, Maia finds out that it is not her father's plane. The plane flies over parallel with her running dog. The dog jumped up for a brief moment, then there was a sound and her puppy never got up again (the puppy was shot). She started hating everything.
             Afterwards, a car pulled up. The driver was a friend of Maia's mother, whom Maia did not like. Maia didn't want to go with them, but she didn't protest because if she did she might cry. Ever since she could remember, when Maia got hurt she had to do something mean.
             The driver took Maia, her mother, Krzys, and Zbyszek to a sixth-floor apartment in Warsaw. Through the window she could see fires, people running, pile-ups of vehicles. The driver left them locked in the room. A bomb went off and her mother was getting worried. The driver came back and told them he saw their father and they were to take a train, go through Rumania to France, where they were to join their father (husband for the mother). Maia's father was always gone and it made her very sad. She cried about that a lot.
             Maia was a tomboy and she also didn't really care if she died. She was very daring. One time her older brother Zbyszek and his friends tied her to a tree and told Maia she had to scream when they lit the logs that were under her feet. She not only wouldn't scream, but if they untied her hands she would light the fire herself.
             They arrived at the railroad station. The station was very crowded with people. Maia and Zbyeszek believed all these people trying to leave Poland were cowards. Maia and her brother didn't like the idea of leaving either.
             Next planes flew over and dropped bombs. The bombs didn't hit the train directly but did rip up the tracks. Everyone on the train...