A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School

74"Who wants a Winter Carnival?" he said in the disillusioned way he had lately developedwhen I brought it up. "What are we supposed to be celebrating?""Winter, I guess.""Winter!" He gazed out of his window at the vacant sky and seeping ground. "Frankly, I justdon't see anything to celebrate, winter or spring or anything else.""This is the first time Finny's gotten going on anything since . . . he came back.""He has been kind of nonfunctional, hasn't he? He isn't brooding, is he?""No, he wouldn't brood.""No, I don't suppose he would. Well, if you think it's something Finny really wants. Still,there's never been a Winter Carnival here. I think there's probably a rule against it.""I see," I said in a tone which made Brinker raise his eyes and lock them with mine. In thatplotters' glance all his doubts vanished, for Brinker the Lawgiver had turned rebel for theDuration.The Saturday was battleship gray. Throughout the morning equipment for the WinterCarnival had been spirited out of the dormitory and down to the small incomplete public parkon the bank of the Naguamsett River. Brinker supervised the transfer, rattling up and down thestairwell and giving orders. He made me think of a pirate captain disposing of the booty.Several jugs of very hard cider which he had browbeaten away from some lowerclassmen werethe most cautiously guarded treasure. They were buried in the snow near a clump of evergreensin the center of the park, and Brinker stationed his roommate, Brownie Perkins, to guard themwith his life. He meant this literally, and Brownie knew it. So he trembled alone there in themiddle of the park for hours, wondering what would happen if he had an attack of appendicitis,unnerved by the thoughts of a fainting spell, horrified by the realization that he might have tomove his bowels, until at last we came. Then Brownie crept back to the dormitory, tooexhausted to enjoy the carnival at all. On this day of high illegal competitiveness, no onenoticed.The buried cider was half-consciously plotted at the hub of the carnival. Around it sprang uplarge, sloppy statues, easily modeled because of the snow's dampness. Nearby, entirely out ofplace in this snowscape, like a dowager in a saloon, there was a heavy circular classroom table,carried there by superhuman exertions the night before on Finny's insistence that he had tohave something to display the prizes on. On it rested the prizes—Finny's icebox, hidden allthese months in the dormitory basement, a Webster's Collegiate Dictionary with all the moststimulating words marked, a set of York barbells, the Iliad with the English translation of eachsentence written above it, Brinker's file of Betty Grable photographs, a lock of hair cut underduress from the head of Hazel Brewster, the professional town belle, a handwoven rope ladderwith the proviso that it should be awarded to someone occupying a room on the third floor or