A Separate Peace

List of characters:
MR. TARRAGON, 29
CARAWAY, 15
PEPPER, 15
SAGE, 15

The scene is a high school classroom in which the students' desks are situated in the shape of a horseshoe around the perimeter of the room. Mr. Tarragon stands on the desk-less side, speaking to his class. One wall of the room is all windows, but the view is pretty bleak--you can only see another wing of the building from here, and a small, grassy courtyard with no one walking inside of it. There is a blackboard behind Mr. Tarragon that has a few irrelevant things written on it; mostly it's covered in erasure marks and stray chalk scribbles.

MR. TARRAGON: So let’s try this. I want you, in your groups, to describe the relationship between Gene and Phineas, but in a creative way. It’s a complicated relationship; arguably it is the only important relationship in the whole book. It makes the book. Mr. Tarragon walks to the blackboard, picks up a piece of chalk and writes, in a vacant spot, “Gene/Phineas Relationship.” So what you’re going to do is draw a scale in your notebook. You know the sign for libra? The zodiac sign?

CLASS: Yes.

MR. TARRAGON: Okay, so maybe your scale looks like this. (He draws it.) This one’s pretty lopsided; one of the characters is clearly ahead in the balance of power. Who knows what I mean by balance of power? (Three or four hands go up; Mr. Tarragon points to one.) Caraway?

CARAWAY: Like when one character is stronger than the other, like, if one makes all the decisions and the other just tags along?

MR. TARRAGON: Okay, that’s pretty good. When I say balance of power I’m talking about the dynamic in their relationship. Does one person have more of the power? For example the balance of power between myself and Mr. Curry is skewed heavily in my favor. (Several students laugh.) I would be on the heavy end of the scale because of my superior intelligence, my decision making skills and my brute strength, whereas Mr. Curry would be way up here because he isn’t all that bright and he would rather I make the decisions for him. Um, well anyway. Or, see, maybe Gene and Phineas are on an even keel, and the scale looks like this. (He draws it.) But the thing is I don’t want you to just draw the scale to show me the balance of power. I want you to explain why one character is more powerful than the other. If you’ve got Phineas all the way up here on the scale and Gene down here, weighing him down, then I want you to explain to me why it’s like this. If I’m going to really argue that I have more power in my relationship with Mr. Curry, I should give you an example, like when I, I don’t know, like when I called him up and told him we were going bowling so get ready whether you like it or not! (The class laughs again.) Hah, okay? Does everyone see what I mean?

Many students nod yes.

MR. TARRAGON: I’m going to hear from every group, all right? Remember, the best way to defend your answers is to give examples from the story. Okay? Go ahead, get started.

PEPPER (to SAGE): Did you read?

SAGE: (nods)

PEPPER: I didn’t read.

SAGE: You didn’t really need to, nothing really happens. Gene goes to visit Phineas in the hospital or whatever and Phineas is happy to see him and he doesn’t know that Gene knocked him out of the tree on purpose.

PEPPER: Oh yeah, I remember that. Did you do the math homework yet?

SAGE: I did some of it. It’s hard, it’s all about some shit we haven’t even done in class yet. I’m probably not going to do the rest. As long as I’ve got something on the paper he won’t care.

PEPPER: Yeah just like write the question and do the first step and he won’t even look at it. Unnghhh. I don’t want to go to practice today. My legs are still sore from those sprints. Maybe it’ll rain.

SAGE: Yeah.

PEPPER: If it rains we should go to the Big Shake. I think Poppy said she would go, and other people too.

SAGE: I think it’s going to rain. Look at it outside.

PEPPER: Coach is so dumb. I hate doing sprints.

SAGE: We should just scrimmage. We’d get better if we could play more. He’s a drill sergeant.

PEPPER: I was about to quit yesterday when he was like okay get on the line girls. Like, again? We just sprinted like all practice.

SAGE: Yeah.

PEPPER: This book is boring. I mean it’s okay, it’s better than like, Romeo and Juliet, you can actually understand what’s going on. But it’s, umm, nothing really happens in it. Like, who cares about these kids, they just like run around and jump in the river. Are they going to go to war already? Haha.

SAGE: Yeah.

PEPPER: Like, I guess it’s pretty sad that they have to go to war when they turn 17 or whatever. But umm I don’t know, I don’t really feel like reading about it. Do you think if we all just skipped practice and went to the Big Shake he’d kill us? What could he do?

SAGE: He’d be pissed. Ummm. I don’t know. We should all just not go.

PEPPER: What’s he going to do? He can’t bench us all if nobody’s there in the first place. I don’t care, I’m just going to skip. It’s not even fun, you know? I’d rather do what I want to do. Oh. Umm. So umm yeah about the relationship between Gene and Phineas.

Mr. Tarragon approaches their desks, walking slowly and saying nothing, but you can tell he is curious about what Sage and Pepper have been discussing. He smiles and hovers next to Pepper’s desk. He looks down at her notebook, which is blank.

MR. TARRAGON: So what do you guys think about these two kids, Gene and Phineas?

Pepper blushes and turns to Sage.

SAGE: Well, um, they are pretty good friends… there’s definitely a good balance of power because they are best friends.

MR. TARRAGON: Okay, okay, so do you think they’re equal in each other’s eyes? I mean, for example, do you think they are both in absolute control of the relationship? Or maybe one of them is more of the boss, and the other is the follower? What do you think?

SAGE: Yeah well I guess Phineas is kind of the boss because he’s always telling Gene what to do like with the suicide club and that ball game they play.

MR. TARRAGON: Okay, that’s good. Pepper, what do you think?

PEPPER: Yeah, like, Phineas is really loud and bossy and is always making jokes, and Gene is the quiet one who just wants Phineas to like him. Maybe? I don’t know…

MR. TARRAGON: No, no, that’s very good. Okay so now do you guys understand what I want you to do with the scale? Imagine the two of them are on the scale and—

PEPPER: Yeah, we know. Yeah. (She picks up her pen and starts writing something. They both shift around in their seats, Pepper swinging her body so it is facing Sage.)

MR. TARRAGON: Okay, good. So draw your own scale and I’d like to see what you guys come up with. (He walks away.)