A Separate Peace

I went along; I never missed a meeting. At that time it would never have occurred to me to say, “I don’t feel like it tonight,” which was the plain truth every night. I was subject to the dictates of my mind, which gave me the maneuverability of a strait jacket. “We’re off, pal,” Fi

As we drifted on through the summer, with this one inflexible appointment every day—classes could be cut, meals missed, Chapel skipped—I noticed something about Fi

But the one which had the most urgent influence in his life was, “You always win at sports.” This “you” was collective. Everyone always won at sports. When you played a game you won, in the same way as when you sat down to a meal you ate it. It inevitably and naturally followed. Fi

He was disgusted with that summer’s athletic program—a little te

“At least it’s not as bad as the seniors,” I said, handing him the fragile racquet and the fey shuttlecock. “They’re doing calisthenics.”

“What are they trying to do?” He swatted the shuttlecock the length of the locker room. “Destroy us?” Humor infiltrated the outrage in his voice, which meant that he was thinking of a way out.

We went outside into the cordial afternoon sunshine. The playing fields were optimistically green and empty before us. The te

Fi

He picked it up. “Now this, you see, is everything in the world you need for sports. When they discovered the circle they created sports. As for this thing,” embracing the medicine ball in his left arm he held up the shuttlecock, contaminated, in his outstretched right, “this idiot tickler, the only thing it’s good for is eeny-meeny-miney-mo.” He dropped the ball and proceeded to pick the feathers out of the shuttlecock, distastefully, as though removing ticks from a dog. The remaining rubber plug he then threw out of sight down the field, with a single lunge ending in a powerful downward thrust of his wrist. Badminton was gone.

He stood balancing the medicine ball, enjoying the feel of it. “All you really need is a round ball.”

Although he was rarely conscious of it, Phineas was always being watched, like the weather. Up the field the others at badminton sensed a shift in the wind; their voices carried down to us, calling us. When we didn’t come, they began gradually to come down to us.

“I think it’s about time we started to get a little exercise around here, don’t you?” he said, cocking his head at me. Then he slowly looked around at the others with the expression of dazed determination he used when the object was to carry people along with his latest idea. He blinked twice, and then said, “We can always start with this ball.”

“Let’s make it have something to do with the war,” suggested Bobby Zane. “Like a blitzkrieg or something.”

“Blitzkrieg,” repeated Fi

“We could figure out some kind of blitzkrieg baseball,” I said.

“We’ll call it blitzkrieg ball,” said Bobby.

“Or just blitzball,” reflected Fi

“Do what!” I veered away from him, hanging on to the clumsy ball. “What kind of a game is that?”

“Blitzball!” Chet Douglass shouted, throwing himself around my legs, knocking me down.

“That naturally was completely illegal,” said Fi

“You don’t?” mumbled Chet from on top of me.

“No. You keep your arms crossed like this on your chest, and you just butt the ball carrier. No elbowing allowed either. All right, Gene, start again.”

I began quickly, “Wouldn’t somebody else have possession of the ball after—”

“Not when you’ve been knocked down illegally. The ball carrier retains possession in a case like that. So it’s perfectly okay, you still have the ball. Go ahead.”

There was nothing to do but start ru

“Knock him down! Are you crazy? He’s on my team!”

“There aren’t any teams in blitzball,” he yelled somewhat irritably, “we’re all enemies. Knock him down!”

I knocked him down. “All right,” said Fi

“I would have thought that possession passed—”

“Naturally you gained possession of the ball when you knocked him down. Run.”

So I began ru

Taken by surprise, Leper looked up in anguish, shrank away from the ball, and voiced his first thought, a typical one. “I don’t want it!”

“Stop, stop!” cried Fi