I Know What You Did Last Summer

1) Julie, Ray, Helen, and Barry are four close friends, Julie and Ray being a couple and Barry and Helen also being one. Being high school students, they went late one night up to a clearing in the forest to hang out. When driving home, they had been a little drunk and were still kissing, they ran over a ten year old kid, David Gregg, who was riding a bicycle. Ray had been driving. The four kept driving until they reached a telephone, where an anonymous ambulance was called for help for the child. The four formed a pact as to keep the incident between them and not to anyone else. Julie and Ray had been against it, but agreed and made it. After that happened, Julie and Ray isolated themselves from the rest of the group. Julie, normally a highly school activity involved social girl, turned to studying and working hard for her senior year, having a new boyfriend named Bud. Ray totally fled the scene, moving to be carefree in California for a year. Helen and Barry remained a couple, Barry going to the local University and Helen being the channel 5 Golden Girl, or weather reporter. The real plot of the story begins with Julie receiving a note at home simply stating: "I know what you did last summer." She gets upset over it and after not talking to her for a year since the incident, calls Helen to talk to her. Helen arranges a meeting for the three, but they all convince each other that it was just a kid pulling a prank. That blows over until Ray finally shows up, and upon finding an apartment, is mailed the article about the incident. Ray and Julie take a drive to talk about the note and article, and Julie convinces Ray to take her to see David's parents. Not confess, just meet and ask about. They arrived at the house and rung the doorbell a few times, only to meet Megan, the sister of David. She told Julie, while Ray was off "calling for help for their car", that David's mother was put in a hospital due to an unstable mental state, her father staying by her side. Her older brother was off and out of the house. Anyway, as they left, Ray notes that Megan was hanging up men's shirts to dry and the house's paint looked fairly new – and in places that Megan, who was short, couldn't reach, even with a ladder. Over time, Helen met a man named Collin and becomes friends with him and finds a magazine in one of her drawers, with a picture of a kid on a bicycle. Barry is suspiciously shot in the stomach, after receiving a phone call at his fraternity house from a suspicious person. He was told to meet this person outside, and upon leaving, was shot in the stomach, the bullet lodging almost to his spine. The shot wasn't heard, due to firecrackers celebrating a holiday. When he arrives at the hospital, he tells his father that it was Helen who called. Helen rushes to the hospital with a ride from Collin when she finds out, and is accused of calling, and is promptly shunned from Barry's family. The next day, Ray meets up with Bud and is invited to lunch with him. They talk, ending up with Bud telling Ray that he has no chance to get back together with Julie. The same day, Ray sneaks into Barry's room (only immediate family members being allowed in) and talks to him. Turns out that it wasn't Helen that called, but some other girl that he had been dating. Or so he said. It had actually been a call from an unknown person saying they had pictures of the accident and would sell them to the police if Barry didn't meet up with him. Barry convinces Ray that it was a robbery, so Ray tells the two girls that. Well, Helen was out at night after hearing that and was at the pool, where she met Collin and was promptly chewed out by him for no reason. Collin left, and Helen stayed with some of the other people to forget what just happened. Upon returning to her room, she finds Collin had broken into her apartment and had seated himself in a chair. They start to talk – Collin telling Helen that he was planning to kill his date for the night, who unknowing to her, was Julie. He also was the older brother to David Gregg, wanting to avenge his younger sibling's death. Helen flees to the bathroom, where she ends up diving out a window and falls unconscious. Collin, or Bud, goes to Julie's house and is going to the car with her, where he is knocked unconscious by Ray after an attempt to attack Julie. The police arrive to the scene, where the story ends with Ray and Julie confessing the whole story.
2) Julie is the main character of the story. She obviously felt the worst about the incident, wanting to confess earlier than the others but remaining strong with the pact. The accident changes her into a strong person, studying harder in school to make the rest of her life so much more worthwhile. She almost tells her mother the whole story, but manages to keep it in once. She doesn't date much, due to Ray, but upon finding Bud, decides to fool around and not keep a steady ongoing relationship with him. I like her a lot, she is the most affected by the death, but is loyal to her friends.
3) The incident that starts the story is after Julie receives a letter, being accepted into Smith college, is going downstairs to eat breakfast when a small envelope is aside her cereal bowl. She opens it to find large ink letters saying: "I know what you did last summer."
4) The story ends with Ray, Julie, Julie's mother, an unconscious Collin and a police officer. Julie is talking to her mother on the porch to Julie's house, being held in Ray's arms. She had also fallen unconscious from shock, but Julie and Ray are more than willing to tell the story.
5) A minour character is Julie's mother. She gets constant bad feelings throughout the story, especially on the night Julie is scheduled to go on a date with Bud (Collin). Her mother convinces Julie to stay home instead of going out, preventing the death of her daughter.
6) The story definitely didn't end the way I thought it would. I never would have thought that Collin was the killer – he seemed pretty nice, until the confrontation of Ray. He seemed a bit suspicious. I was somewhat prepared for the ending after realizing that Collin and Bud were the same people, and about the whole date with Julie. It took me a bit to realize what was going on, but I eventually caught on. It's overall a great story, too.