Chapter 12

Someone had rushed to get Dr. Stanpole, and others rushed to get Phil, the wrestling coach who knew first aid. The foyer and staircase were crowded quickly. Everyone seemed very calm, even Finny. The doctor said it was his leg, but a much cleaner break. They rushed him in his car over to the infirmary. I snuck over to see what was going on. All I could hear were monotonous voices that were going to, “bore Finny to death”(173). I started to think of some funny things while I listened to them talk. Once the doctor left, I snuck in through the window. “I thought at first he was going to get out of bed and help me through the window” (176). He was struggling to unleash his hate against me. I had felt alone and not part of anything. I went and got breakfast, and when I went back to the dorm there was a note telling me to get Finny’s things and bring them to him. When I got there he was different, “I noticed that as he tried to slide a hairbrush out from under a flap holding it in the case his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t get it out. Seeing that released me on the spot” (181). Then Finny told me something I didn’t know. He desperately wanted to be in the war He had been mailing everyone to see if he was use, but no one accepted him. I told him how he wouldn’t be good in the war, and he told me that he could believe that the tree incident wasn’t anything personal. After classes I went to the infirmary, and Dr, Stanpole wasn’t patrolling the halls like he usually does. About ten minutes later, he came out and said, “This is something I think boys of your generation are going to see a lot of. Your friend is dead” (185). I was shaking, I didn’t understand. He said the bone marrow must have gone to his heart and stopped it. I did not cry when I heard this, not even at the funeral. You don’t cry when it’s your own funeral.