For example "That day and the next, Jerry exercised his lungs as if everything, the whole of his life, all that he would become, depended upon it." (481)You would not expect an eleven year old on his own to have the determination and construction to practice and build up stamina like this. And even the way he starts to thinks that this Is important to him. Another example of his maturity is "A day's rest, he discovered, had improved his count by ten. The big boys had made the passage while he counted a hundred and sixty. He had been counting fast, in his fright. Probably now if he tried, he could get though that long tunnel, but he was not going to try yet." (481) this showed that he has the maturity and the common sense to make the decision of giving him more time to actually do the tack so he doesn't run out of air in the tunnel. Unlike a child that would just go in and swim though the tunnel and most likely die. My last example is the time when he actually when the thought the tunnel. He was so determined to travel through the tunnel that even when all hope was lost he still went on and knew he had to keep going into the darkness. He knew that he would drown if he didn't go farther, unlike a immature child that would probably get scared and freak out and