Chapter 4

This picture represents Gene studying

This represents what Finny thinks Gene wants to be, class valedictorian.

This picture represents the two boys doing the double jump.

This picture represents the time the two boys came back from the beach, 10:00.

I remember waking up around dawn, I went for a quick swim before we left off to school. We then got back from our biking trip at 10:00, just in time for Gene's trigonometry test which he was talking about failing our whole bike ride back. When he came back to the room I found out he had failed the test. He seemed as though he was mad at me for this happening and began to catch up on his trigonometry. I remember telling Gene, "You work too hard(43)." I definitely though this was true because he knows all French, History and English, so what does he need trigonometry for. I told him i thought he was trying to be class valedictorian. He told me he disagreed and said he wasn't.He exclaimed that, "Don't be stupid i wouldn't waste my time on anything like that(43)." After he seemed to have thought about what i said and asked me, "but you wouldn't mind, would you(44)?" I replied, "I'd kill myself out of jealous envy(44)." This showed him that I was kidding but made him think that there would be a chance that I would get a little upset. I could tell that he began to work on this goal to become valedictorian but i couldn't really figure out if he was doing it for himself or if he was doing it to compete with me. Although at times it became awkward between us, we were still best friends despite the fact. I found out Gene told Mr. Prud'homme that he and I went to the beach. The funny thing is that Mr. Prud'homme totally ignored it, it was like the school had lost a lot of discipline because of me. I am proud of Gene because even though is studying a lot more for school, he finds time to attend all of the clubs meetings. I ran into our room and told Gene that Leper was going to jump off the tree into the river to become a full member. I must have interrupted his studies because it seemed as though he thought i was interrupting him on purpose. I told him he didn't have to come if he didn't want to but he did. I decided he and I should do a double jump, but as we were both on the branch it became very unsteady. Something than moved the branch from under me and i fell off, i felt Gene dive after me but was not able to grasp me enough to save me.