What is a summary for A Wrinkle in Time Chapter 1?

Answer 1

Fourteen-year-old Meg Murry's classmates and teachers see her as a troublesome student. Her family knows that she is emotionally immature but also see her as capable of great things. The family includes her beautiful scientist mother; her mysteriously absent scientist father; her athletic 10-year-old twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys; and her five year-old brother Charles Wallace Murry, a super-genius who can sometimes read Meg's mind.

The book begins with the line "It was a dark and stormy night," an allusion to the opening words in Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Unable to sleep during a thunderstorm, Meg descends from her attic room to find Charles Wallace sitting at the table drinking milk and eating bread and jam. They are then joined by their mother, and are visited by their new eccentric neighbor, Mrs Whatsit. In the course of conversation, Mrs Whatsit casually mentions there is such a thing as a tesseract, which causes Mrs. Murry to almost faint.

The next morning, Meg discovers the term refers to a scientific concept her father was working on before his mysterious disappearance. The following afternoon, Meg and Charles Wallace encounter Meg's schoolmate, Calvin O'Keefe, a high-school junior who, although he is a "big man on campus", considers himself a misfit as well. They then go to visit an old haunted house near town which Charles Wallace already knows is the home of Mrs Whatsit. There they encounter a companion of Mrs Whatsit, the equally strange Mrs Who. She promises that she and her friends will help Meg find and rescue her father. A budding love interest develops between Meg and Calvin. In the evening, Charles Wallace declares it is time for them to go on their mission to save their father. This is accompanied by the appearance of the third member of the "Mrs W's", Mrs Which, who appears to materialize out of nothing.