A Separate Peace Chapter 3

Badminton. The beach Gene and Finny went to.

"Yes, Finny had practically saved my life" (25). But he also almost cost me my life. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have even been in that tree. The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session was a big success, right from the start. Finny and I were the Charter Members, and like I said before, we had to open every meeting by jumping from the tree ourselves. It was the first of many rules that Finny created. Despite the fact that I jump with him, without hesitation, I hated it. Each meeting we had, the limb seemed higher, thinner, scarier. But I would never have not jumped. If I didn't, I knew Finny would give me an earful of his rules. We were a club. "Clubs by definition met regularly; we met every night. Nothing could be more regular than that" (26). We started skipping classes, meals, and Chapel. Finny made his own rules that he listened to. They sounded in the form of Commandments. For example, "Never say you are five feet nine when you are five feet eight and a half" and "Always say some prayers at night because it might turn out that there is a God." His most urgent rule was "You always win at sports" (26). That meant everyone. You could never lose. It was the fun of the game. You always win, even if you're down by 15 points in the last 10 seconds of the game, you still won. Finny hated Devon's summer athletic program. He didn't like tennis, swimming, softball, and badminton. Especially badminton. So Finny invented 'blitzball'. Blitzball was played with a medicine ball, which is really heavy. Finny made it so that the ball was always in my hands. There aren't any teams in blitzball, so everyone was on their own. We played this game numerous times to keep us entertained.

I remember one day when Finny broke the school swimming record. The record was originally held by A. Hopkins Parker. Finny just wanted to see if he could beat him, and he did. He beat him by .7 seconds. Nobody else knows that Finny beat the record. For some reason, Finny doesn't like holding school records and having people make a big deal about it.

Later, we went to the beach, which was a lot of fun. "We had dinner at a hot dog stand" (39). Finny wanted to make sure that I had a good time, like it was his job to make me have fun. He called me his best pal, which was courageous to say, especially when you go to the Devon School. I was going to say it back, "but something held me back" (40). Maybe I didn't think Finny was my best pal. But that's ridiculous, isn't it?

A Separate Peace Chapter 2

Unfortunately, it was obvious we had skipped dinner. And today, Mr. Prud'homme came to our door. He's one of the guys that wears gray business suits all the time. He enforces all the rules. He's strict, and nobody can get passed him. That is, except for Finny. Finny explained everything to him, how we were swimming in the river and all that. He rambled on to Mr. Prud'homme, and it was obvious he was getting impatient. Mr. Prud'homme scolded us about how we had "already missed nine meals in the last two weeks" (14). Finny then continues to explain the situation. Somehow, Finny had managed to convince Mr. Prud'homme that we did nothing wrong, and that we shouldn't be punished. He explained that we just had to jump out of the tree, because at the end of the summer, we would be 17 and, if they lowered the age to 17, eligible for the draft to go to war, and we were just preparing. At tea later, Finny made some good points about the war, like what to be careful that our troops don't bomb. After the party, and for the rest of the summer as I recall, we spent our summer in complete selfishness. We continued jumping out of the tree, and we formed the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. The membership requirement was to jump from the tree. Each day, we had more and more people join, and Finny and I would start off the meetings by jumping from the tree into the river together. We met every night, and never missed a meeting, not even if we had exams to study for. We had gone to jump from the tree when I almost fell. I lost my balance. I could've broken my back if I fell. If I fell. But I didn't. If I had fallen a certain way, I'd be dead. Finny stopped me from falling. He pretty much saved my life.