A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School

104Dr. Stanpole stopped near the doors, looking for the light switch. There was an interval of afew seconds when no one was near him. I came up to him and tried to phrase my question butnothing came out, I couldn't find the word to begin. I was being torn irreconcilably between "Ishe" and "What is" when Dr. Stanpole, without appearing to notice my tangle, saidconversationally, "It's the leg again. Broken again. But a much cleaner break I think, muchcleaner. A simple fracture." He found the light switch and the foyer was plunged into darkness.Outside, the doctor's car was surrounded by boys while Finny was being lifted inside it byPhil Latham. Phil and Dr. Stanpole then got into the car and drove slowly away, the headlightsforming a bright parallel as they receded down the road, and then swinging into anotherparallel at right angles to the first as they turned into the Infirmary driveway. The crowd beganto thin rapidly; the faculty had at last heard that something was amiss in the night, and severalalarmed and alarming masters materialized in the darkness and ordered the students to theirdormitories.Mr. Ludsbury loomed abruptly out of a. background of shrubbery. "Get along to thedormitory, Forrester," he said with a dry certainty in my obedience which suddenly struck meas funny, definitely funny. Since it was beneath his dignity to wait and see that I actuallyfollowed his order, I was by not budging free of him a moment later. I walked into the bank ofshrubbery, circled past trees in the direction of the chapel, doubled back along a large buildingdonated by the alumni which no one had ever been able to put to use, recrossed the street andwalked noiselessly up the emerging grass next to the Infirmary driveway.Dr. Stanpole's car was at the top of it, headlights on and motor running, empty. I idlyconsidered stealing it, in the way that people idly consider many crimes it would be possiblefor them to commit. I took an academic interest in the thought of stealing the car, knowing allthe time that it would be not so much criminal as meaningless, a lapse into nothing, an escapeinto nowhere. As I walked past it the motor was throbbing with wheezy reluctance—prepschool doctors don't own very desirable getaway cars, I remember thinking to myself—andthen I turned the comer of the building and began to creep along behind it. There was only onewindow lighted, at the far end, and opposite it I found some thin shrubbery which providedenough cover for me to study the window. It was too high for me to see directly into the room,but after I made sure that the ground had softened enough so that I could jump without makingmuch noise, I sprang as high as I could. I had a flashing glimpse of a door at the other end ofthe room, opening on the corridor. I jumped again; someone's back. Again; nothing new. Ijumped again and saw a head and shoulders partially turned away from me; Phil Latham's. Thiswas the room.The ground was too damp to sit on, so I crouched down and waited. I could hear theirblurred voices droning monotonously through the window. If they do nothing worse, they'regoing to bore Finny to death, I said to myself. My head seemed to be full of bright remarks thisevening. It was cold crouching motionless next to the ground. I stood up and jumped severaltimes, not so much to see into the room as to warm up. The only sounds were occasional snorts