In this chap­ter from *The Catch­er in the Rye*, the nar­ra­tor, Hold­en Caulfield, expe­ri­ences a moment of relief upon return­ing home, as the usu­al ele­va­tor atten­dant, Pete, is absent. Instead, he encoun­ters a new, some­what naïve ele­va­tor atten­dant. Hold­en clev­er­ly con­vinces him to take him upstairs under the guise of being the Dick­steins’ nephew, demon­strat­ing his adept­ness at manip­u­la­tion. Once he exits the ele­va­tor, he feels excite­ment and deter­mi­na­tion, aware of the need to avoid his par­ents before recon­nect­ing with his younger sis­ter, Phoebe.

As he makes his way stealth­ily through the dark foyer—a space filled with an unfa­mil­iar but dis­tinct­ly home­ly smell—he recalls the quiet­ness of their home, where the maid­’s par­tial deaf­ness allows him some lee­way to move unno­ticed. He notes the pecu­liar­i­ties of his fam­i­ly, assert­ing that his moth­er has incred­i­bly acute hear­ing, con­trast­ing with his father’s seem­ing­ly heavy slum­ber.

Upon reach­ing D.B.‘s room, where Phoebe is sup­posed to be, he finds it emp­ty. He recalls that she often sleeps there when her broth­er is away, rel­ish­ing the larg­er space. When he final­ly turns on the desk lamp, he admires Phoe­be’s sleep­ing form, not­ing the inno­cence of chil­dren con­trast­ed with adults. His mood lifts as he observes her tidy belong­ings and is remind­ed of his moth­er’s good taste in cloth­ing.

He finds Phoe­be’s school note­books, which show­case her youth­ful creativity—an amal­ga­ma­tion of school­work and per­son­al thoughts, which he finds amus­ing and endear­ing. Even­tu­al­ly, he wakes her gen­tly, and they share heart­felt con­ver­sa­tion. Phoe­be’s can-do spir­it is evi­dent when she excit­ed­ly announces her role in a school play, titled “A Christ­mas Pageant for Amer­i­cans,” where she plays Bene­dict Arnold. Her enthu­si­asm is con­ta­gious, and Hold­en feels a sense of peace, tem­porar­i­ly for­get­ting the chaos of his own life.

The chap­ter high­lights the strong bond between Hold­en and Phoebe, reveal­ing Hold­en’s pro­tec­tive instincts, as well as his desire to escape from the trou­bles of adult­hood, rep­re­sent­ed by his wish to retreat to a ranch in Col­orado. Their exchange under­scores a mix of care­free child­hood inno­cence and Hold­en’s deep-seat­ed strug­gles, cre­at­ing a poignant por­trait of famil­ial love and the pres­sures of grow­ing up.