A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School

73and evenly melodic one which for some reason always reminded me of a Rolls-Royce movingalong a highway. "We'd better organize the Winter Carnival."We were sitting in our room, on either side of the single large window framing a square offeatureless gray sky. Phineas was resting his cast, which was a considerably smaller one now,on the desk and thoughtfully pressing designs into it with a pocket knife. "What WinterCarnival?" I asked."The Winter Carnival. The Devon Winter Carnival.""There isn't any Devon Winter Carnival and never has been.""There is now. We'll have it in that park next to the Naguamsett. The main attraction will besports, naturally, featuring I expect a ski jump—""A ski jump! That park's as flat as a pancake.""—and some slalom races, and I think a little track. But we've got to have some snowstatues too, and a little music, and something to eat. Now, which committee do you want tohead?"I gave him a wintry smile. The snow statues committee.""I knew you would. You always were secretly arty, weren't you? I'll organize the sports,Brinker can handle the music and food, and then we need somebody to kind of beautify theplace, a few holly wreaths and things like that. Someone good with plants and shrubbery. Iknow. Leper."From looking at the star he was imprinting in his cast I looked quickly up at his face."Leper's gone.""Oh yeah, so he is. Leper would be gone. Well, somebody else then."And because it was Finny's idea, it happened as he said, although not as easily as some ofhis earlier inspirations. For our dormitory was less enthusiastic about almost everything witheach succeeding week. Brinker for example had begun a long, decisive sequence ofwithdrawals from school activity ever since the morning I deserted his enlistment plan. He hadnot resented my change of heart, and in fact had immediately undergone one himself. If hecould not enlist—and for all his self-sufficiency Brinker could not do much without company—he could at least cease to be so multifariously civilian. So he resigned the presidency of theGolden Fleece Debating Society, stopped writing his school spirit column for the newspaper,dropped the chairmanship of the Underprivileged Local Children subcommittee of the GoodSamaritan Confraternity, stilled his baritone in the chapel choir, and even, in his mostimpressive burst of irresponsibility, resigned from the Student Advisory Committee to theHeadmaster's Discretionary Benevolent Fund. His well-bred clothes had disappeared; thesedays he wore khaki pants supported by a garrison belt, and boots which rattled when hewalked.