Summary

In Chapter 1, O'Brien's novel begins with 7 year old Thomas H. Chippering and 8 year old Herbie Zylstra playing together, with their toy airplane made of plywood, pretending to drop bombs on their neighbors houses and even the local church. The two boys are close friends and Herbie lives just down the street from Thomas with his younger sister Lorna Sue, who is 7 years old. One day, Herbie decides that the wooden airplane is no longer a plane, but a cross. While playing “Sunday School,” he instructs Lorna Sue to extend her arms in the same fashion of Jesus’ crucifixion (6). He takes a hammer and strikes a nail that goes halfway through her left palm. After this incident, Herbie is sent to a Jesuit boys school for a year and comes back with a different personality, one that was rigid and hostile as if the “naive...