The Hero

When Jamie and Jerry are pressured to take clumsy Dennis with them on their rafting adventure, disaster soon strikes as the raft is turned over and they all go their separate ways, but when Dennis doesn't return, the two boys decide to lie to make him seem like a hero in his final hours of life.

Nobody would believe Dennis Leeper was a hero. He was the kind of kid you hid from when he pedaled his rickety bike down the road. But Jamie couldn’t say no when his father asked him to include Dennis in the raft project. And someone needed to hold the line when Jamie and his cousin Jerry finally got the raft in the river. But they should have known that Dennis couldn’t be trusted to hold onto it.

Without paddles and out of people’s sight, the three boys are swept downstream—toward the dams, the steep falls, and three separate destinies. One swims to shore. One is rescued. And one never returns alive.

Overcome by guilt and the fear that Dennis’s father will take revenge for his son’s death, Jamie tells everyone how he survived: Dennis was a hero. The question is: Will anyone believe it?
From the Hardcover edition.