What happens in Chapter 1 of One of Us Is Lying?
Chapter 1 begins five days before Simon Kelleher, the mastermind behind Bayview High's infamous gossip app, About That, meets his end. The chapter introduces the four main suspects during a shared detention: Bronwyn Rojas, the straight-A student; Addy Prentiss, the queen bee; Nate Macaulay, the rebellious outsider; and Cooper Clay, the star athlete. They find themselves in detention after phones are found in their bags—phones none of them admit to owning. Simon, who is also in detention, dies from a severe allergic reaction after his EpiPen goes missing. This opening chapter expertly outlines the social hierarchy at Bayview High, placing each student in their respective roles while hinting at the underlying tensions. It concludes with Simon collapsing, chaos erupting in the classroom, and leaves readers grappling with the key question the novel will explore: which of them is guilty?
Analysis
Karen M. McManus starts with a clever structural choice — the chapter title, "Before: Five Days Before Simon Dies," removes any suspense about Simon's fate, shifting the reader's focus from what will happen to why and who is involved. This move is intentional: by revealing Simon's outcome right away, McManus pushes the reader to examine motives and character instead of just the events.
The detention room acts like a pressure cooker, a classic closed-space setting that heightens social tension. McManus uses the seating arrangement and each character's thoughts to illustrate Bayview's strict social hierarchy — jock, brain, princess, criminal — while also hinting that these labels are more about performance than true identity. The hidden phones serve as a clever piece of Chekhov's staging: an item that shouldn't be in their bags, instantly suggesting a setup or conspiracy.
In terms of tone, the chapter blends the light-hearted style of YA social commentary with a sense of foreboding. McManus almost entirely omits Simon's inner thoughts; he comes across as a social force, a threat, instead of a fully fleshed-out character — a choice that will complicate readers' feelings for him later. The allergic reaction is depicted in short, fast-paced sentences, mirroring how a typical Tuesday can swiftly turn into a crime scene. The chapter's concluding image — chaos, a body, four witnesses — encapsulates the novel's central theme visually.
Key quotes from Chapter 1
“Simon's the kind of guy who could ruin your life and feel great about it.”
Bronwyn's internal narration establishes Simon's social power and the stakes of his gossip app before the detention scene fully unfolds.
“None of us are supposed to be here. And now none of us can leave.”
The narrator reflects on the detention room as the allergic reaction begins, crystallizing the novel's central trap — physical, legal, and moral.
“I don't know whose phone it is. I've never seen it before in my life.”
Each of the four students repeats a version of this denial to the teacher, the identical alibi that will later read as either innocence or coordination.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 1
- detention
- A school punishment requiring a student to stay after hours or report to a supervised room, used here as the setting where the five main characters are gathered when the death occurs.
- app
- Short for application — here specifically the gossip-sharing mobile app called About That, which Simon runs to expose secrets about students at the school.
- anaphylactic shock
- A sudden, severe, life-threatening allergic reaction that causes the body to go into crisis; in this text it is the medical emergency that kills Simon.
- EpiPen
- A brand-name auto-injector device that delivers a dose of epinephrine to stop a severe allergic reaction; Simon's EpiPen is missing when he needs it, which is central to the mystery.
- peanut allergy
- A potentially fatal immune-system reaction triggered by eating or being exposed to peanuts; Simon's known peanut allergy is the mechanism of his death.
- gossip app
- A smartphone application used anonymously to spread rumours and private information about people; the one in this novel, About That, is what gives Simon his power over classmates.