Summary
Prologue
It is August in Treegap, a small town near a forest. It is a hot and still time, and the air seems to be filled with anticipation.
Three things are happening simultaneously: Mae Tuck sets out to meet her sons, Winnie Foster thinks about running away, and a man appears at the Fosters' gate. Though there seems to be no connection between these three events, the narrator promises that they will all eventually tie together soon.
Chapter One
A road winds through the rural area of Treegap, but abruptly changes direction when it meets the forest. The first village house on the road is a cottage described as having a "touch-me-not" appearance - it is enclosed by a high fence. It is well-tended, but seems unfriendly somehow. It is the people who live in this house, the Fosters, who own the woods nearby. Since no road goes through the woods, very few people go into the woods at all. Even the ten-year-old daughter of the Foster family, Winnie, isn't particularly interested in it.
This is fortunate, because there is a secret in the woods. Near a giant ash tree, there is a little spring bubbling up, half-hidden by pebbles. If people found this, the narrative promises, this would be a world-shaking disaster.
Chapter Two
At dawn, Mae Tuck wakes up and exclaims to her husband that the boys will be home tomorrow. She wakes up her husband, simply called Tuck, who is annoyed. Sleep is one of the few things he enjoys. He irritably says he was having the good dream again, where they are all in heaven.
Mae insists that nothing is ever going to change and he should just get used to things. Then she says she's going to ride down to town to meet them, which Tuck discourages. Mae points out that it has been ten years since she went to Treegap, and no one will remember her.
Mae dresses for her day. She asks if Tuck will be alright until she returns tomorrow, and he asks what can possibly happen to him. She puts her small music box into her pocket and brushes her hair. She doesn't need a mirror, because - as the narrator suddenly reveals - she has looked exactly the same for eighty-seven years.
Chapter Three
Just inside the fence near her house, Winnie Foster tells a nearby toad that she is planning something. She has taken a break from throwing stones at the toad to explain that she's planning on running away, because she is tired of being an over-watched only child, and she wants to find something in the world that's interesting and belongs just to her.
She concludes to the toad that she should indeed run away - in fact, she'll do it the very next day. The toad does not reply. Winnie's mother summons her inside for lunch, knowing nothing of her plans.
Chapter Four
At sunset, a man in a yellow suit approaches Winnie as she tries to collect fireflies inside her yard. He chats with her in a friendly manner, but he reminds Winnie somewhat of the black ribbons they hung on the door of her cottage when her grandfather died.
The man asks how long Winnie and her family have lived here, and she says they've been here forever, which elicits a strange reaction from the man. He says he has some questions about a family nearby, and asks to talk to her father. Winnie grandmother hears her talking and comes out to the yard. The man in the yellow suit is friendly to her and says she must know everyone around here, but she dismisses him.
Suddenly a gentle music fills the air, and Winnie's grandmother says it's the elf music that has come again. Winnie's grandmother is delighted, but the man in yellow seems strangely thoughtful.
Chapter Five
When Winnie wakes up the next morning, she has decided to run away. She is a little bit afraid, because throughout her short life people have told her that she needs to be protected and that she cannot manage on her own. However, despite her fear, she decides that running away will be the best way to truly make a difference in the world.
Winnie heads into the woods. It's a warm day and she sees a number of animals, including squirrels and birds. She also sees the toad she encountered the day before. She notices a clearing up ahead that is slightly brighter than the rest of the forest around it, and heads toward it. In this clearing, she sees a giant tree and a teenage boy sitting under it. The boy yawns and stretches, then moves some stones at the roots of the tree and takes a drink of the spring that bubbles up between the roots.
The boy catches sight of Winnie watching him, and they introduce themselves. The boy is named Jesse Tuck, and he seems strangely nervous that she saw him drinking from the spring. When Winnie asks how old he is, the boy says he's one hundred and four years old, then suddenly corrects himself and says he's just seventeen.
Winnie goes to drink from the spring, but the boy prevents her from doing so. Winnie gets angry and says that her father owns these woods, and Jesse grows pale. Suddenly two other members of the Tuck family - Mae and Miles - arrive. Seeing Jesse and Winnie by the spring, Mae says that the worst has happened at last.
Analysis
The Prologue makes a connection between the three seemingly unconnected narrative threads in this early section - the woman going to meet her sons, the young girl planning to run away, and the man in yellow. It becomes clear that these three seemingly different people will soon encounter each other and change one another's lives permanently.
The Prologue unites these three characters by connecting them to the motif of the wheel. "All wheels must have a hub. A Ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best led undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late" (p. 4). Wheels are a frequent motif throughout the book, and they symbolize the cycle of life - birth, life, and death - from which the Tucks are now removed.
The novel makes extensive use of foreshadowing, which is evident in this early section. When describing the three people and likening them to spokes on a wheel, the author remarks that "sometimes people find this out too late" (p. 4), which suggests that these characters will have to cope with some difficult or challenging events.
In Chapter Two, the reader is introduced to what seems like an ordinary couple waking up and discussing the events of their coming day. A few aspects of their conversation seem peculiar (such as Mae pointing out that she hasn't been to Treegap in ten years when Tuck says she better not do that), but overall this seems like an ordinary morning for many couples. At the end of the chapter comes the surprise that these two people have not aged in eighty-seven years. This is one example of the way that the mundane is intertwined with the extraordinary in Tuck Everlasting.
Winnie chooses to run away in Chapter Five, which is a common motif in children's literature, appearing in fairy tales and even modern works of literature such as The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. In "Running Away to Home - a Story Pattern in Children's Literature," Jon Stott remarks on this phenomenon. Analyzing several popular children's novels, he concludes that the pattern proceeds thus: the protagonist is dissatisfied with home, so she chooses to run away; she encounters new people and events that challenge her, but eventually she emerges victorious; lastly, having learned from these experiences, the protagonist returns home changed and accepts family life. This ability to view one's home in a different way is also part of the theme of coming-of-age that pervades the novel.
