Chapter 1

The tree Finny and I jump out of

This looks like "My West Point stride"

The tree was enormous and intimidating to climb. Noone our age wanted to climb, except Phineus. Finny is my best friend at Devon Academy and one of the craziest people you will ever meet. He told me and the group of students we were with, that he liked the tree because, "It was such a cinch." All of us thought he was crazy, because only seniors jump out of the tree, to prepare for the war. We are only upper middlers, and noone our age had ever accomplished the feat. This summer I've been extremely sarcastic, and replied to Finny's ridiculous statement by saying, "Is that what you like best?" Finny was the first to climb the tree and jump into the river. When he reappeared on the surface, he said it was, "The most fun I've had this week." I was nervous about jumping, but Finny talked me into it; he was good at persuading people. I finally plunged into the water and felt proud of myself for doing it. Finny also asked the others to jump, but they made up excuses about why they couldn't, so Finny and I left them and started to walk back towards the school, for dinner. We heard the bell for dinner, and I started to walk faster using my "West Point stride," which Finny hates. He tripped me and I fell forward and he sat on my back. When he got off, we continued walking toward dinner, but I had to get back at him first. One thing about Finny, is his extraordinary hearing, which he used to dodge every counter attack I had for him. This time, however, I kicked him, as he tried to move away. To stall time, Finny started to wrestle me, and of course won. The friends from the river were telling us to hurry up, and as we started to speed up, I became like Finny and hated the "conformity" of the school. I caught him off gaurd by hip checking him, and he fell on the ground. I took aadvantage of this by jumping on top of him and wrestled for as long as we thought dinner would be. We walked back to our dormitory and listned to the radio. The radio was illegal, but we managed to listen to the news, by putting the volume at a low level.