a separate piece dis two everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him it is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him and afterward when you say to this person the world today or life or reality he'll assume that you mean this moment even if it's 50 years past the world through his Unleashed emotions imprinted itself upon him and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever for me this moment four years is a moment in history was the war the war was and is reality for me I still instinctively live and think in its atmosphere these are some of its characteristics Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the president of the United States and he always has been the other two Eternal world leaders are Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin America is not and never has been and never will be what the songs and poems call it a Land of Plenty nylon meat gasoline and steel are rare there are too many jobs and not enough workers money is very easy to earn but rather hard to spend because there isn't very much to buy trains are always late and always crowded with servicemen the war will always be fought very far from America and it will never end nothing in America stands still for very long including the people who are always either leaving or on leave people in America cry often 16 is the key and crucial and natural age for a human being to be and people of all other ages are arranged in an orderly manner ahead of and behind you as a harmonious setting for the 16-year-olds of this world when you're 16 adults are slightly impressed and almost intimidated by you this is a puzzle finally solved by the realization that they foresee your military future fighting for them you do not foresee it to waste anything in America is immoral string and tin foil are Treasures new newspapers are always crowded with strange maps and names of towns and every few months the Earth seems to Lurch from its path when you see something in the newspapers such as the time musolini who had almost seemed one of the Eternal leaders is photographed hanging upside down on a meat hook everyone listens to the news broadcasts five or six times every day all pleasurable things all travel and sports and entertainment and good food and fine clothes are in the very shortest Supply always were and always will be there are just tiny fragments of pleasure and luxury in the world and there's something unpatriotic about enjoying them all foreign lands are inaccessible except the servicemen they're vague distant and sealed off as though behind a curtain of plastic the prevailing color of life in America America is a dull dark green called olive drab that color is always respectable and always important most other colors risk being unpatriotic it's this special America a very untypical one I guess an unfamiliar transitional blur in the memories of most people which is the real America for me in that short-lived and special country we spent this summer at Devon when finny achieved certain Feats as an athlete in such a period no one notices or rewards any achievements involving the body unless the result is to kill it or save it on the battlefield so that there were only a few of us to applaud and wonder at what he was able to do one day he broke the school swimming record he and I were fooling around in the pool near a big bronze plaque marked with the events for which the school kept records 50 yards 100 yard 220 yards under each was a slot with a marker fitted into it showing the name of the record holder his year and his time under 100 yards freestyle there was a Hopkins Parker 1940 53.0 seconds a Hopkins Parker finny squinted up at the name I don't remember any a Hopkins Parker he graduated before we got here you mean that record has been up there the whole time we've been at Devon and nobody's busted it yet it was an insult to the class and Finny had tremendous loyalty to the class as he did to any group he belonged to beginning with him and me and radiating outward past the limits of humanity toward spirits and clouds and stars no one else happened to be in the pool around us gleamed white tile and glass brick the green artificial looking water rocked gently in its shining Basin releasing vague chemical smells and a sense of many pipes and filters even finny's voice trapped in this closed High ceilinged room lost its special resonance and blurred into a general well of noise gathered up toward the ceiling he said blurring I have a feeling I can swim faster than a Hopkins Parker we found a stopwatch in the office he mounted a starting box leaned forward from the waist as he'd seen racing swimmers do but never had occasion to do himself I noticed a preparatory looseness coming into his shoulders and arms a controlled ease about his stance which was unexpected in anyone trying to break a record I said on your mark go there was a complex moment when his body uncoiled and shot forward with sudden metallic tension he planed up the pool his shoulders dominating the water while his legs and feet rode so low that I couldn't distinguish them a wake rippled hurriedly by him and then at the end of the pool his position broke he relaxed dived an instants confusion and then his suddenly and metallically tense body shot back toward the other end of the pool another turn and up the pool again I noticed no particular slackening of his Pace another turn down the pool again his hand touched the end and he looked up at me with a composed interested expression well how did I do I looked at the watch he'd broken a Hopkins Parker's record by7 second my God so I really did did it you know what I thought I was going to do it I felt as though I had that stopwatch in my head and I could hear myself going just a little bit faster than a Hopkins Parker oh the worst thing is there aren't any Witnesses I'm no official timekeeper I don't think it'll count well of course it won't count you can try it again and break it again tomorrow we'll get the coach in here and all the official timekeepers and I'll call the devonian to send a reporter and a photographer he climbed out of the pool I'm not going to do it again he said quietly of course you are no I just wanted to see if I could do it now I know but I don't want to do it in public some other swimmers drifted in through the door finny glanced sharply at them by the way he said in an even more subdued voice we aren't going to talk about this it's just between you and me don't say anything about it to anyone not say anything about it when you broke the school record sh he shot a blazing agitated glance at me I stopped and looked at him up and down he didn't look directly back at me you're too good to be true I said after a while he glanced at me and then said thanks a lot in a somewhat expressionless voice was he trying to impress me or something not tell anybody when he'd broken a School record without a day of practice I knew he was serious about it so I didn't tell anybody perhaps for that reason his accomplishment took root in my mind and grew rapidly in the darkness where I was forced to hide it the Devon School record books contained a mistake a li and nobody knew it but finny and me a Hopkins Parker was living in a Fool's Paradise wherever he was his defeated name remained in bronze on the school record plaque while finny deliberately evaded an athletic honor it was true that he had many already the Winslow grith Memorial football trophy for having brought the most Christian sportsmanship to the game during the 1941 1942 season the Margaret Duke bonov ventur a ribbon and prize for the student who conducted himself at hockey most like the way her son had done the Devon School contact sport Award presented each year to that student who in the opinion of the athletic advisers excels his fellows in the sportsmanlike performance of any game involving bodily contact but these were in the past they were prizes not school records the sports finny played officially football Hockey baseball lacrosse didn't have have school records to switch to a new sport suddenly just for a day and immediately break a record in it that was about as neat a trick as dazzling a reversal as I could to be perfectly honest possibly imagine there was something inebriating in the suppleness of this feat when I thought about it my head felt a little dizzy and my stomach began to tingle it had in one word glamour absolute school boy glamour when I looked down at the stopwatch and realized a split second before I permitted my face to show it or my voice to announce it that finny had broken a School record I'd experienced a feeling that can also be described in one word shock to keep silent about this amazing happening deepen into the shock for me it made finny seem too unusual for not friendship but too unusual for rivalry and there were few relationships Among Us at Devon not based on rivalry swimming in pools is screwy anyway he said after a long unusual silence as we walk toward the dormatory the only real swimming is in the ocean then in the everyday mediocre tone he used when he was proposing something really outrageous he added let's go to the beach the beach was hours away by bicycle forbidden completely out of all bounds going there risked expulsion destroyed the studying I was going to do for an important test the next morning blasted the reasonable amount of order I wanted to maintain in my life and it also involved the kind of long labored bicycle ride I hated all right I said we got our bike and slipped away from Devon along a back road having invited me finny now felt he had to keep me entertained he told Long Wild stories about his childhood as I pumped panting up steep hills he glided along beside me joking steadily he analyzed my character and he insisted on knowing what I disliked most about him you're too conventional I said he rode backward with no hands he rode on his own handlebars he jumped off and back on his moving bike as he'd seen trick horseback Riders do in the movies he sang despite the steady musical undertone in his speaking voice finny couldn't carry a tune and he couldn't remember the melody or the words to any song but he loved listening to music any music and he liked to sing We reached the beach late in the afternoon the tide was high and the surf was Heavy I dived in and rode a couple of waves but they'd reached that stage of power in which you could feel the whole strength of the ocean in them the second wave as it tore toward the beach with me spewed me a little ahead of it encroaching rapidly suddenly it was immeasurably bigger than I was it rushed me from the control of gravity and took control of me itself the wave threw me down in A Primitive plunge without a bottom then there was a bottom grinding sand and I skid it onto the shore the wave hesitated balanced there and then hissed back toward the deep water its tentacles not quite interested enough in me to drag me with it I made my way up on the beach and lay down finny came ceremoniously took my pulse and then went back into the ocean he stayed in an hour breaking off every few minutes to come back to me and talk the sand was so hot from the all day sunshine that I had to brush the top layer away in order to lie down on it and finny's progress across the beach became a series of high startled leaps the ocean throwing up foaming Suns sprays across some nearby rocks was winter cold this kind of sunshine and ocean with the accumulating Roar of the surf and the salty adventurous flirting wind from the sea always intoxicated Phineas he was everywhere he enjoyed himself hugely he laughed out loud at passing seagulls and he did everything he could think of for me we had dinner at a hot dog stand with our backs to the ocean and it's now cooler wind our faces toward the heat of the cooking range then we walked on toward the center of the beach where there was a subdued New England strip of Honky Tonks the Boardwalk lights against the deepening Blue Sky gained an ideal Starry Beauty and the lights from the belt of Honky Tonks and shooting Galleries and beer gardens cleed with a quiet Purity in the clear Twilight finny and I went along the boardwalk in our sneakers and white slacks Finny in a light blue polo shirt and I in a t-shirt I noticed that people were looking fixedly at him so I took a look myself to see why his skin radiated a reddish copper glow of tan his brown hair had been a little bleached by the Sun and I noticed that the tan made his eyes shine with a cool blue green fire everybody's staring at you he suddenly said to me it's because of that movie Star Tan you picked up this afternoon showing off again enough broken rules were enough that night neither of us suggested going into any of The Honky Tonks or beer gardens we did have one glass of beer each at a fairly respectable looking bar convincing or seeming to convince the Bender that we were old enough by a show of forged draft cards then we found a good spot spot among some sand dunes at the lonely end of the beach and there we settled down to sleep for the night the last words of finny's usual nighttime monologue were I hope you're having a pretty good time here I know I kind of dragged you away at the point of a gun but after all you can't come to the shore with just anybody and you can't come by yourself and at this teenage period in life the proper person is your best pal he hesitated and then added which is what you are and there was silence on his Dune it was a courageous thing to say exposing a sincere emotion nakedly like that at the Devon school was the next thing to Suicide I should have told him then that he was my best friend also and rounded off what he had said I started to I nearly did but something held me back per perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling deeper than thought which contains the truth chapter 4 the next morning I saw Dawn for the first time it began not as the gorgeous Fanfare over the ocean I had expected but as a strange gray thing like sunshine seen through burlap I looked over to see a Phineas was awake he was still asleep although in this drain light he looked more dead than asleep the ocean looked dead too dead gray waves hissing mly along the beach which was gray and dead looking itself I turned over and tried to sleep again but couldn't and so lay on my back looking at this gray burlap Sky very gradually like one instrument after another being tentatively rehearsed beacons of color began to pierce the sky the ocean perked up a little from the reflection of these colored slivers in the sky bright highlights Shone on the tips of waves and beneath its gray surface I could see lurking a deep midnight green the beach shed its deadness and became a spectral gray white then more white than gray and finally it was totally white and stainless as pure as the shores of eaten Phineas still asleep on his dune made me think of Lazarus brought back to life by the touch of God I didn't contemplate this transformation for long inside my head for as long as I could remember there had always been a sense of time ticking steadily I looked at the sky and the ocean and knew that it was around 6:30 the ride back to Devon would take 3 hours at least my important test trigonometry was going to be held at 10:00 Phineas woke up talking that was one of the best nights sleep I ever had when did you ever have a bad one the time I broke my ankle in football I like the way this beach looks now shall we have a morning swim are you crazy it's too late for that what time is it Anyway finny knew I was a walking clock it's going on 7:00 there's time for just a short swim and before I could say anything he was trotting down the beach shedding clothes as he went and into the ocean I waited for him where I was he came back after a while full of Chilly glow and energy and talk I didn't have much to say do you have the money I asked once suddenly suspecting that he'd lost our joint 75 cents during the night there was a search a hopeless one in the sand and so we set off on the long ride back without any breakfast and got to Devon just in time for my test I flunked it I knew I was going to as soon as I looked at the test problems it was the first test I had ever flunked but finny gave me little time to worry about that right after lunch there was a game of Blitzball which took most of the afternoon and right after dinner there was the meeting of the super suicide Society of the summer session that night in our room even though I was was worn out from all the exercise I tried to catch up to what had been happening in trigonometry you worked too hard finny said sitting opposite me at the table where we read the study lamp cast a round yellow pool between us you know all about history in English and French and everything else what good will trigonometry do you I'll have to pass it to graduate for one thing don't give me that line nobody at Devon has ever been sure of grad uating than you are you aren't working for that you want to be Head of the Class valedictorian so you can make a speech on graduation day in Latin or something boring like that probably and be the Boy Wonder of the school I know you don't be stupid I wouldn't waste my time on anything like that you never waste your time that's why I have to do it for you anyway I grudgingly added somebody's got to be the head of the class you you see I knew that's what you were aiming at he concluded quietly fooy what if I was it was a pretty good goal to have it seemed to me after all he should talk he'd won and been proud to win the GTH football trophy and the contact sport award and there were two or three other athletic prizes he was sure to get this year or next if I was Head of the Class on graduation day and made a speech and won the Nee plus Ultra Scholastic achievement citation then we'd both have come out on top we'd be even that was all we'd be even was that it my eyes snapped from the textbook toward him did he notice this sudden glance shot across the pool of light he didn't seem to he went on writing down his strange Kuru notes about Thomas Hardy in Phineas shorthand was that it with his head bent over in the Lamplight I could discern a slight mound in his brow above the eyebrows the faint bulge which is usually believed to indicate mental power Phineas would be the first to disclaim any great mental power in himself but what did go on in his mind if I was the head of the class and won that prize then we'd be even his head started to come up and mine snapped down I glared at the textbook relax he said your brain will explode if you keep this up you don't need to worry about me finny I'm not worried you wouldn't I wasn't sure I had the control to put this question mind if I wound up Head of the Class would you mind two clear green blue eyes looked at me fat chance you've got anyway with Chad Douglas around but you wouldn't mind would you I repeated in a lower and more distinct voice he gave me that half smile of his which had won him a thousand conflicts I'd kill myself out of jealous Envy I believed him the joking manner was a screen I believed him in front of my eyes the trigonometry textbook blurred into a jumble I couldn't see my brain exploded he minded despised the possibility that I might might be the head of the school there was a swift chain of explosions in my brain one certainty after another blasted up like a detonation went the idea of any best friend up went affection and partnership and sticking by someone and relying on someone absolutely in the jungle of a boy School up went the hope that there was anyone in this school in this world whom I could trust Chet Douglas I said uncertainly is a sure thing for it my misery was too deep to speak anymore I scanned the page I was having trouble breathing as though the oxygen were leaving the room amid its Devastation my mind flashed from thought to thought despairingly in search of something left which it could rely on not rely on absolutely that was obliterated as a possibility just rely on a little some solace something surviving in the ruins I found it I found a single sustaining thought the thought was you and Phineas are even already you are even in enmity you're both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone you did hate him for breaking that school swimming record but so what he hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term you would have had an A in that one except for him except for him then a second realization broke as clearly and bleakly as Dawn at the beach finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies that explained Blitzball that explained the nightly meetings of the super suicide society that explained his insistence that I share all his diversions the way I believed that you're my best friend blabber The Shadow falling across his face if I didn't want to do something with him his Instinct for sharing everything with me sure he wanted to share everything with me especially his procession of D's in every subject that way he the great athlete would be way ahead of me it was all cold trickery it was all calculated it was all enmity I felt better yes I sensed it like the sweat of relief when nausea passes away I felt better we were even after all even in enmity the deadly rivalry was on both sides after all I became quite a student after that I'd always been a good one although I wasn't really interested and excited by learning itself the way Chad Douglas was now I became not just good but exceptional with Chad Douglas my only rival in sight but I began to see that Chet was weakened by the very genuiness of his interest in learning he got carried away by things for example he was so fascinated by the tilting planes of solid geometry that he did almost as badly in trigonometry as I did myself when we read candid it opened up a new way of looking at the world to chat and he continued hungrily reading voler in French while the class went on to other people he was vulnerable there because because to me they were all pretty much alike voler and mulier and the laws of motion and the Magna Carta and the pathetic fallacy and test of the derails and I worked indiscriminately on all of them finny had no way of knowing this because it all happened so far ahead of him scholastically in class he generally sat slouched in his chair his alert face following the discussion with an expression of philosophical comprehension and when he was forced to speak himself the hynotic power of His Voice combined with the singularity of his mind to produce answers which were often not right but could barely be branded as wrong written tests were his downfall because he couldn't speak them and as a result he got grades which were barely passing it wasn't that he never worked because he did work in short intense bouts now and then as that crucial summer wore on and I tightened the discipline on myself Phineas increased his bouts of studying I could see through that I was more and more certainly becoming the best student in the school Phineas was without question the best athlete so in that way we were even but while he was a very poor student I was a pretty good athlete and when everything was thrown into the scales they would in the end tilt definitely toward me the new attacks of studying were his emergency measures to save him himself I redoubled my effort it was surprising how well we got along in these weeks sometimes I found it hard to remember his treachery sometimes I discovered myself thoughtlessly slipping back into affection for him again it was hard to remember when one summer day after another broke with a cool effulgence over us and there was a breath of widening life in the morning air something hard to describe an oxygen intoxicant a shiny Northern paganism some odor some feeling so hopelessly promising that I would fall back in my bed on guard against it it was hard to remember in the heady and sensual Clarity of these mornings I forgot whom I hated and who hated me I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless Joy or intolerable promise or because these mornings were too full of Beauty for me because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this summer layed Dawn no one paid any attention to us one day I found myself describing to Mr prome how Phineas and I had slept on the beach and he seemed to be quite interested in it in all the details so much so that he missed the point that we had flatly broken a basic rule no one cared no one exercised any real discipline over us we were on our own August arrived with a deepening of the summertime splendors of New Hampshire early in the month we had two days of light steady rain which aroused a final fullness everywhere the branches of the old trees which had been familiar to me either half denuded or completely gaunt during the winter terms at Devon now seemed about to break from their storms of leaves little disregarded patches of ground revealed that they had been Gardens all along and nondescript underbrush around the gymnasium and the river broke into color there was a latent freshness in the air as though spring were returning in the middle of the summer but examinations were at hand I wasn't as ready for them as I wanted to be the suicide Society continued to meet every evening and I continued to attend because I didn't want finny to understand me as I understood him and also I didn't want to let him Excel me in this even though I knew that it didn't matter whether he showed me up at the tree or not because it was what you had in your heart that counted and I had detected that finny's was a den of lonely selfish ambition he was no better than I was no matter who won all the contests a French examination was announced for one Friday late in August finny and I studied for it in the library Thursday afternoon I went over vocabulary lists and he wrote messages going to give a damn about Le FR and France Pon and passed them with great seriousness to me as Aid Memoir of course I didn't get any work done after supper I went to our room to try again Phineas came in a couple of minutes later arise he began arily senior overseer Charter Member elwin leper leeler has announced anounced his intention to make the leap this very night to qualify to save his face at last I didn't believe it for a second leper leeler would go down paralyzed with panic on any sinking troop ship before making such a jump finny had put him up to it to finish me for good on the exam I turned around with elaborate resignation if he jumps out of that tree I'm Mahatma Gandhi all right agreed Finny absently he had a way of turning cliché inside out like that come on let's go we've got to be there you never know maybe he will do it this time oh for God's sake I slammed closed the French book what's the matter what a performance his face was completely questioning and candid studying I snarled studying you know books work examinations yeah he waited for me to go on as though he didn't see what I was getting at oh for God's sake you don't know what I'm talking about no of course not not you I stood up and slammed the chair against the desk okay we go we watch Little Lily liver leeler not jump from the tree and I ruin my grade he looked at me with an interested surprised expression you want to study I began to feel a little uneasy at this mildness of his so I sighed heavily never mind forget it I know I joined the club I'm going what else can I do don't go he said it very simply and casually as though he were saying nice day he Shrugged don't go what the hell it's only a game I'd stopped halfway across the room and now I just looked at him what do you mean I muttered what he meant was clear enough but I was groping for what lay behind his words for what his thoughts could possibly be I might have asked who are you then instead I was facing a total stranger I didn't know you needed to study he said simply I didn't think you ever did I thought it just came to you it seemed that he'd made some kind of parallel between my studies and his Sports he probably thought anything you were good at came without effort he didn't know yet that he was unique I couldn't quite achieve a normal speaking voice if I need to study then so do you me he smiled faintly listen I could study forever and I'd never break C but it's different for you you're good you really are If I Had a Brain like that i' I'd have my head cut open so people could look at it now wait a second he put his hands on the back of a chair and leaned toward me I know we kid around a lot and everything but you have to be serious sometime about something if you're really good at something I mean if there's nobody or hardly anybody who's as good at it as you are then you got to be serious about that don't mess around for God's sake he frowned disapprovingly at me why didn't you say you had to study before don't move from that desk it's going to be all a for you wait a minute I said without any reason it's okay I'll oversee old leper I know he's not going to do it he was at the door wait a minute I said more sharply wait just a minute I'm coming no you aren't pal you're going to study never mind my studying you think you've done enough already Yes I let this drop curtly to Bar him from telling me what to do about my work he let it go at that and went out the door ahead of me whistling off key we followed our gigantic Shadows across the campus and Phineas began talking in Wild French to give me a little extra practice I said nothing my mind exploring the new dimensions of isolation around me any fear I had ever had of the tree was nothing beside this it wasn't my neck but my understanding which was menaced he'd never been jealous of of me for a second now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us I was not of the same quality as he I couldn't stand this we reached the others loitering around the base of the tree and fenus began exuberantly to throw off his clothes delighted by The Fading glow of the day the challenge of the tree the competitive tension of all of us he lived and flourished in such moments let's go you and me he called a new idea struck him we'll go together a double jump neat eh none of this mattered now I would have listlessly agreed to anything he started up The Wooden rungs and I began climbing behind up to the limb High over the bank Phineas ventured a little way along it holding a thin nearby Branch for support come out a little way he said and then we'll jump side by side the countryside was striking from here a deep green sweep of playing fields and bordering Shrubbery with the school Stadium white and miniature looking across the river from behind us the last long rays of light played across the campus accenting every slight undulation of the land emphasizing the separateness of each Bush holding firmly to the trunk I took a step toward him and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb finny his balance gone swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest and then he tumbled sideways broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening unnatural thud it was the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make with unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped into the river every trace of my fear of this forgotten chapter 5 none of us was allowed near the infirmary during the next days but I heard all the rumors that came out of it eventually a fact emerged it was one of his legs which had been shattered I couldn't figure out exactly what this word meant whether it meant broken in one or several places cleanly or badly and I didn't ask I learned no more although the subject was discussed endlessly out of my hearing people must have talked of other things but everyone talked about Phineas to me I suppose this was only natural I'd been right beside him when it happened I was his roommate the effect of his injury on the Masters seemed deeper than after other disasters I remembered there it was as though they felt it was especially unfair that it should strike one of the 16-year-olds one of the few young men who who could be free and happy in the summer of 1942 I couldn't go on hearing about it much longer if anyone had been suspicious of me I might have developed some strength to defend myself but there was nothing no one suspected Phineas must still be too sick or too Noble to tell them I spent as much time as I could alone in our room trying to empty my mind of every thought to forget where I was even who I was one evening when I was dressing for dinner in this numbed frame of mind an idea occurred to me the First with any energy behind it since fenny fell from the tree I decided to put on his clothes we wore the same size and although he always criticized mine he used to wear them frequently quickly forgetting what belonged to him and what to me I never forgot and that evening I put on his cour shoes his pants and I looked for and finally found his pink shirt neatly laundered in a drawer its high somewhat stiff collar against my neck the wide cuffs touching my wrists the rich material against my skin excited a sense of strangeness and distinction I felt like some nobleman some Spanish Grande but when I looked in the mirror it was no remote Aristocrat I'd become no character out of Daydreams I was Phineas Phineas to the life I even had his humorous expression on my face his sharp optimistic awareness I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief but it seemed standing there in finny's triumphant chirt that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again I didn't go down to dinner the sense of transformation stayed with me throughout the evening and even when I undressed and went to bed that night I slept easily and it was only on waking up that this illusion was gone and I was confronted with myself and what I had done to finny sooner or later it had to happen and that morning it did finny's better Dr stanpole called to me on the chapel steps over the organ recessional thundering behind us I made my way haltingly past the members of the choir with their black robes flapping in the morning Breeze the doctor's words reverberating around me he might denounce me there before the whole school instead he steered me amiably into the lane leading toward the infirmary he could stand a visitor or two now after these very nasty few days you don't think I'll upset him or anything you no why I don't want any of these teachers flapping around him but a pal or two it'll do him good I suppose he's still pretty sick it was a messy break but how does he how is he feeling I mean is he cheerful at all or oh you know finny I didn't I was pretty sure I didn't know finny at all it was a messy break he went on but we'll have him out of it eventually he'll be walking again walking again yes the doctor didn't look at me and barely changed his tone of voice sports are finished for him after an accident like that of course but he must be able to I burst out if his leg's still there if you aren't going to amputate it you aren't are you then if it isn't amputated and the bones are still there then it must come back the way it was why wouldn't it of course it will Dr stanpole hesitated and I think glanced at me for a moment sports are finished as a friend you ought to help him face that and accept it the sooner he does the better off he'll be if I had the slightest hope that he could do more than walk I'd be all four trying for everything there is no such hope I'm sorry as of course everyone is it's a tragedy but there it is I grabbed my head fingers digging into my skin and the doctor thinking to be kind put it his hand on my shoulder at his touch I lost all hope of controlling myself I burst out crying into my hands I cried for Phineas and for myself and for this doctor who believed in facing things most of all I cried because of kindness which I had not expected now that's no good you've got to be cheerful and hopeful he needs that from you he wanted especially to see you you were the one person he asked for that stopped my tears I brought my hands down and watched the red brick exterior of the infirmary a cheerful building coming closer of course I was the first person he wanted to see Phineas would say nothing behind my back he would accuse me face to face we were walking up the steps of the infirmary everything was very Swift and next I was was in a corridor being nudged by Dr stanpole toward the door he's in there I'll be with you in a minute the door was slightly a jar and I pushed it back and stood transfixed on the threshold Phineas lay among pillows and sheets his left leg enormous in its white bindings suspended a little above the bed a tube LED from a glass bottle into his right arm some Channel began to close in inside me and I knew I was about to black out come on in I heard him say you look worse than I do the fact that he could still make a light remark pulled me back a little and I went to a chair beside his bed he seemed to have diminished physically in the few days which had passed and to have lost his tan his eyes studied me as though I were the patient they no longer had their sharp Good Humor but had become clouded and visionary after a while I realized he'd been given a drug what are you looking so sick about he went on finny I there was no controlling what I said the words were instinctive like the reactions of someone cornered what happened there at the tree that godamn tree I'm going to cut down that tree who cares who can jump out of it what happened what happened how did you fall how could you fall off like that I just fell his eyes were vaguely on my face something jiggled and I fell over I remember I turned around and looked at you it was like I had all the time in the world I thought I could reach out and get hold of you I flinched violently away from him to drag me down too he kept looking vaguely over my face to get hold of you so I wouldn't fall off yeah naturally I was fighting for air in this close room I tried you remember I reached out but you were gone you went down through those little branches underneath and when I reached out there was only air I just remember looking at your face for a second awfully funny expression you had very shocked like you have right now right now well well of course I am shocked who wouldn't be shocked for God's sake it's terrible everything's terrible but I don't see why you should look so personally shocked you look like it happened to you or something it's almost like it did I was right there right on the limb beside you yeah I know I remember it all there was a hard block of silence and then I said quietly as though my words might detonate the room do you remember what made you fall his eyes continued their roaming across my face I don't know I must have just lost my balance it must have been that I did have this idea this feeling that when you were standing there beside me you I don't know I had a kind of feeling but you can't say anything for sure from just feelings and this feeling doesn't make any sense it was a crazy idea I must have been Delirious so I just have to forget it I just fell he turned away to grope for something among the pillows that's all then he glanced back at me I'm sorry about that feeling I had I couldn't say anything to this sincere drugged apology for having suspected the truth he was never going to accuse me it was only a feeling he had and at this moment he must have been formulating a new commandment in his personal decalogue never accuse a friend of a crime if you only have a feeling he did it and I thought we were competitors it was so ludicrous I wanted to cry if Phineas had been sitting here in this pool of guilt how would he have felt what would he have done he would have told me the truth I got up so suddenly that the chair overturned I stared at him in amazement and he stared back his mouth breaking into a grin as the moments passed well he said at last in his friendly knowing voice what are you going to do hypnotize me finny I've got something to tell you you're going to hate it but there's something I've got to tell you my God what energy he said falling back against the pillows you sound like General MacArthur I don't care who I sound like and you won't think so when I tell you this is the worst thing in the world and I'm sorry and I hate to tell you but I've got to tell you but I didn't tell him Dr stanpole came in before I was able to and then a nurse came in and I was sent away the next day the doctor decided that finny was not yet well enough to see visitors even old PALS like me soon after he was taken in an ambulance to his home outside Boston the summer session closed officially came to an end but to me it seemed irresolutely suspended halted strangely before its time I went South for a month's vacation in my hometown and spent it in an atmosphere of revery and unreality as though I had lived that month once already and had not been interested by it the first time either at the end of September I start Ed back toward Devon on the jammed erratic trains of September 1942 I reached Boston 17 hours behind schedule there would be prestige in that at Devon where those of us from long distances with travel Adventures to report or invent held the floor for several days after a vacation by luck I got a taxi at South Station and instead of saying North Station to the driver instead of just Crossing Boston and catching the final train for the short short Last Leg of the trip to Devon instead of that I sat back in the seat and heard myself give the address of finny's house on the outskirts we found it fairly easily on a street with a Nave of ancient Elms branching over it the house itself was high white and oddly proper to be the home of Phineas it presented a face of definite Elegance to the street although behind that wings and eles dwindled quickly in form until the house ended in a big plain Barn nothing surprised Phineas A cleaning woman answered the door and when I came into the room where he was sitting he looked very pleased and not at all surprised so you are going to show up his voice took off in one of its flights and you brought me something to eat from down south didn't you Honeysuckle and molasses or something like that I tried to think of something funny cornbread you did bring something you didn't go all the way to Dixie and then come back with nothing but your dismal face to show for it his talk rolled on ignoring and covering my look of shock and clumsiness I was silenced by the sight of him propped by white hospitall looking pillows and a big armchair despite everything at the Devon infirmary he had seemed an athlete there temporarily injured in a game as though the trainer would come in any minute and tape him up propped now before a great New England fireplace on this quiet old Street he looked to me like an invalid housebound I brought well I never remember to bring anyone anything I struggled to get my voice Above This self- accusing murmur I'll send you something flowers or something flowers what happened to you and Dixie anyway well then there was no light remark anywhere in my head I'll get you some books never mind about books I'd rather have some talk what happened down south as a matter of fact I brought out all the cheerfulness I could find for this there was a fire it was just a grass fire out behind our house we uh took some brooms and beat it I guess what we really did was fan it because it just kept getting bigger until the fire department finally came they could tell where it was because of all the flam brooms we were waving around in the air trying to put them out finny liked that story but it put us on the familiar friendly level Pals trading stories how was I going to begin talking about it it wouldn't be just a thunderbolt it wouldn't even seem real not in this conversation not in this room I wished I'd met him in a railroad station or at some Highway intersection not here here the small window panes Shone from much polishing and the walls were hung with Miniatures and old portraits the chairs were either heavily upholstered and too comfortable to stay awake in or early American and never used there were several Square solid tables covered with family pictures and random books and magazines and also three small elegant tables not used for anything it was a compromise of a room with a few good pieces for guests to look at and the rest of it for people to use but I had known Finny in an impersonal dormatory a gym a playing field in the room we shared at Devon many strangers had lived before us and many would afterward it was there that I had done it but it was here that I would have to tell it I felt like a wild man who had stumbled in from the jungle to tear the place apart I moved back in the early American chair its rigid back and high armrests immediately forced me into a righteous posture my blood could start to pound if it wanted to let it I was going ahead I was thinking about you most of the trip up oh yeah he glanced briefly into my eyes I was thinking about you and the accident there's loyalty for you to think about me when you were on a vacation I I was thinking about it about you because I was thinking about you and the accident because I caused it finny looked steadily at me his face very handsome and expressionless what do you mean you caused it his voice was as steady as his eyes my own voice sounded quiet and foreign I jounced the limb I caused it one more s sence I deliberately jounced the limb so you would fall off he looked older than I had ever seen him of course you didn't yes I did I did of course you didn't do it you damn fool sit down you damn fool of course I did I'm going to hit you if you don't sit down hit me I looked at him hit me you can't even get up up you can't even come near me I'll kill you if you don't shut up you see kill me now you know what it is I did it because I felt like that now you know yourself I don't know anything go away I'm tired and you make me sick go away he held his forehead wearily an unlikely way it struck me then that I was injuring him again it occurred to me that this could be an even deeper injury than what I'd done before I'd have to back out of it I'd have to disown it could it be that he might even be right had I really and definitely and knowingly done it to him after all I couldn't remember I couldn't think however it was and it was worse for him to know it I had to take it back but not here you'll be back at Devon in a few weeks won't you I muttered after both of us had sat in silence for a while sure I'll be there by Thanksgiving anyway at Devon where every stick of furniture didn't assert that fny was part of it I could make it up to him now I had to get out of there there was only one way to do it I would have to make every move false I've had an awfully long trip I said I never sleep much on trains I guess I'm not making too much sense today don't worry about it I think I'd better get to the station I'm already a day late at Devon you aren't going to start living by the rules are you I grinned at him oh no I wouldn't do that and that was the most false thing the biggest lie of all this ends dis 2