The Thing About Luck

I drew a line through that too. Then I closed my journal and put it back on the shelf.

I took down paper and A Separate Peace to write my book report. The teacher said to sum up your feelings about the book in the first paragraph. Then tell what happened and also mention what you do or don’t have in common with the main character. Also, somewhere in there you’re supposed to state how the main character changes in the story.

My sixth-grade teacher hated contractions. We were supposed to write, for instance, “do not” rather than “don’t.” One thing I didn’t understand was punctuation. My teacher always said to put your punctuation where it “feels” right. But then when I did that, she always marked up my paper because she said the punctuation was all wrong. Fortunately, the main thing was to mix up descriptions of the book with your own feelings, not to have perfect punctuation. You had to write at least three drafts and hand in all three.

For draft number one, here’s what I wrote:

I thought A Separate Peace was a strange and kind of amazing book. It was very quite quiet, and then suddenly, it was not quiet at all. So then the parts that are not quiet make all the quiet parts seem like they are not quiet after all. Once I read the whole book, my mind flashed back through the whole book again. It is a book about two boys, Finny and Gene, and they are best friends. They are in high school. They go to a boarding school. It is during World War II. I am only twelve years old, so I don’t do not know much about World War II.

This book starts at the end not the beginning. Most of the book takes place fifteen years earlier than it is in the first and last chapters. The main character, is Gene. Gene used to have fear when he went to school, but, he then gets rid of his fear. This was very interesting to me, because I am scared of a lot of things. Sometimes, I just want to stay locked up in my room at night, because I think a mosquito might bite me. And, I am afraid, to ride my bicycle in the night, even though I have my dog, Thunder, with me and even if I am covered in DEET. Even if a mosquito does not bite me, who knows a car might hit me.

For Gene, there was a very important insident that happened fifteen years earlier. If anyone reads this report and has not read the book yet, consider this, a *spoiler alert*. Finny climbs up a tree and when he is on a branch, Gene shakes the branch and Finny falls.

Finny used to be, a great athelete, but now his leg is broken so bad from the fall that he cannot be an athelete anymore. Later in the book Finny falls down a set of stairs. Then, he dies during sugary surgery on his leg. The problem is, I do not really understand if Gene could have possibly shook the branch on purpose. I mean, who would do that to their best friend? Gene was jealous of how good an athelete Finny is, so I guess Gene, shakes the branch on purpose to hurt Finny??

Before Finny dies, then Gene starts to dress like Finny. Finny trains Gene to be an athelete like Finny used to be. Gene becomes like Finny because Finny cannot be himself anymore. This is insane behavior in my opinion. Their relationship is so intense that it is insane.

Finny dies. Then Gene can start to act like himself again.

I stopped writing. We were supposed to write the theme or the lesson of the book at the end of the report. I didn’t understand what the theme or lesson of this book could be. I thought about it, and then I started writing again.

People are very complicated, and I do not think even a really smart psichyatrist psyciatrist psychiatrist can truly figure out what is in your brain and what is in your heart or stomach. You might not even realize it, but maybe you would shake a branch your best friend is on, although I personally do not think I would ever do that. Your My brain and heart might be mixed up and tangled, and inside of you me there are both good and bad things. The lesson of A Separate Peace is that it takes might take fifteen years to untangle all those things inside of me.

I must say I thought that was a pretty brilliant book report. Plus, the book really gave me insight into life. It made me realize that since I was twelve, I could be almost twenty-seven by the time I was untangled. That seemed like an awfully long time in the future, but maybe there was a way to shorten the time. I knew you would have to work hard at it, because if it was easy to untangle yourself, everybody would be untangled, which simply isn’t true.

Anyway, it was time to start adding carrots and potatoes to the stew. Jiichan had told me that while I was cooking, I should put love into what I was doing, and then the food would be healthier. I couldn’t find my apron, so I put on Obaachan’s. I picked up a knife to slice the potatoes. How did I put love into that? I thought, I love everyone, I love everyone, I love everyone. I kept thinking that while I sliced. I held my open palms over the potatoes and thought, Love, love, love. I really concentrated. But as hard as I concentrated, I just couldn’t feel love for these potatoes.

“What are you doing?” Jaz asked.

“Putting love into the potatoes,” I answered.

“Putting love into the potatoes,” he repeated.

“Jiichan said to put love into the food as I cook.”

Jaz laughed a delighted laugh. I don’t know why, but I laughed too.

CHAPTER TEN

For dinner we drove out to the combines and ate on the canvas chairs, the stew in a big pot on the pickup’s lowered gate. I decided to wait until the last minute to tell the Parkers about the dead chickens. If I told them sooner, it might ruin their digestion. On the other hand, I thought about how my grandfather had once told me that when I did something bad, I should try to hurry through it. Like, instead of sitting around worrying about it, just get the confession and punishment over with as quickly as I could. “Make time go faster,” he had said.

I kept my eyes on Mrs. Parker as she took her first sip. She didn’t change expressions. She took another sip and said, “Not bad,” and my heart leapt. I wondered if she could feel any love in the potatoes. Since the stew had turned out okay, maybe she wouldn’t be so upset when I told her about the chickens.

I swear I was just about to confess, but then right toward the end of dinner, Mr. Laskey came by with a pretty girl about my age and said, “Keep your eyes open for coyotes. One of them killed three of my prize chickens in broad daylight. Never saw that before.” He shook his head angrily. “And I’ve got the best free-range chickens in the county. People have paid a hundred dollars for one of my chickens.”

Holy moly. Since I had saved $461 in my whole life, that meant my money was only worth four and a half of his chickens.

“Dad,” the pretty girl said, “can I have some of their pie?”

But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me. Mr. Laskey’s eyes had fallen on mine while he said “never saw that before,” and I could hardly breathe. It was as if he were talking directly to me, like somehow he knew who was responsible. It was time to confess. But I couldn’t get my mouth open. I shot a look at Obaachan to confess for me, but she just sat spooning her stew as if none of this had anything to do with her. Robbie and I met eyes.

Mr. Laskey’s daughter, who was standing right next to where I was sitting, was wearing her hair in two braids, just like mine. She had eyelashes so long, they seemed almost unreal. “Hi, I’m Summer,” I told her.

“Hi,” she said coldly, and I knew right then she didn’t want to be friends. I had on an apron, which I guess told her everything she needed to know about me. A part of me wanted to be friends with her, and a part of me