Summary:
Toby and Arthur have drifted apart from each since the start of high school and they have been brutal with each other. When Mr. Mitchell saw them fight, he signed them up in his annual "smoker". The smoker is a school event in which enemies fight one another in a boxing ring. Dwight trains Toby for the smoker. When the fight takes place, Toby won the fight over Arthur, known as a sissy. Toby is scared by the fact that he has gotten closer to Dwight during his training and his moves in the boxing ring. Toby was rejected by all the private schools he applied for except for the Hill School. Mr. Howard, an alumnus of Hill school, was sent to interview Toby. He assured Toby that Hill is not an easy school. Later in the novel, Toby almost slices his hand during shop class. He spent nearly a week in the hospital.Toby took some of Dwight's alcohol to ease the pain in his finger. When Dwight realizes that some of his alcohol was gone, he confronts Toby. When Toby talks back, Dwight pushes Toby (not violently), that he stumbles and landed on his injured finger. That incident was the last straw for Rosemary so she sends Jack to live with the Chuck Bolger and his family.
Chuck gets drunk every night and often gets violent with himself. He and Toby would go to this girl's house named Veronica to drink and play poker. The reader learns that Mr. Bolger is a preacher. So Toby goes to church with the Bolger family. At church, Toby is fond of the liveliness of gospel music and goes to the "Amen Corner" where members of the church shout and clap to show their faith. One night, Toby, Chuck, Huff, and Psycho decided to drive to Bellingham but Chuck knew he won't have enough fuel to drive all the way there. So Chuck had the idea of stealing gas from the Welch farm. They walked a lot to get the gas and walked so much to go back. They were so tired that they didn't go to Bellingham after all. The next morning, Mr. Bolger woke the boys up and commands them to go back to the Welch farm and return the gas and apologize. Chuck apologized but Toby did not. Mr. Bolger asked why Toby didn't say anything. Toby didn't answer so Mr. Bolger had no choice but to call his mother and take him home. Toby then meets Father Karl and asks him sternly why he did what he did and if he wants to make his mother unhappy. Father Karl didn't get through Toby well. Chuck, Huff, and Psycho was charged with statutory rape that happened to an overweight, fifteen year old girl named Tina Flood. To not go to jail, Chuck had to marry her, which he didn't want to do. Then Huff agreed to marry Tina.
Toby gets accepted to Hill School and Mr Howard picks out his clothes to go to the school. Rosemary has a new job in Seattle which she will start in about 1 week and seems happy without Dwight. Then Toby is going to spend time with his father and Geoffrey in California during the summer. After that summer, Toby breaks into Dwight's house and steals his rifles, a pair of binoculars, and a hunting knife. He goes to the pawn stores and didn't receive a good price for the rifles. During Christmas break, Dwight meets Rosemary at Washington D.C where she lives now and tries to strangle her but she kicks him in the groin. Next, he steals her purse but got caught and arrested. Toby is doing terrible at Hill school that he gets kicked out in the middle of senior year. Last, Toby remembers as an adult now that he was driving to Chinook from Seattle singing hymns from the radio.
Quote:
"Chuck apologized," I said. "I didn't" (Wolff 247).
Reaction:
This quote was from the incident of the boys stealing gas from the Welch farm Chuck apologized for his actions but Toby didn't. This puzzled me. Toby was in the stunt of stealing gasoline but he did not want to take fault in the incident. From this passage, it shows that Toby has so much pride in himself for him to think that he should not apologize. I mean, Toby says as though that he feels sorry about the gasoline incident, but he can't say these two words, "I'm sorry" because, he said that he just can't. That is not a good excuse. That caused a strain in Chuck and Toby's friendship. I wonder why he doesn't want to apologize. That's the right thing to do, but he 's doing the opposite of good in keeping his mouth shut and to not take part of the blame. At least he was honest and said that he didn't say anything.
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