After spending winter break with his father and stepmother, Stephen goes to a boarding school in Geneva, Switzerland. Every week, he is required to write a letter home. He begins by writing to his father to thank him for cutting his honeymoon short to spend Christmas with him in New York. He also promises that he will be careful about how much money he spends and that he will do the prescribed exercises that are meant to fix his crossed eyes and his fallen arches. The next week he tries to write to his mother, but she doesn't respond. Through several letters back and forth between Stephen and his father, they talk about a girl who was impregnated by an instructor and then committed suicide, the mother and father's divorce, Stephen's inability to do his exercises after his roommate breaks his eye machine and he breaks his own ankle. Stephen's father constantly corrects his son's spelling, trying to impress upon him why he must work hard to spell correctly so that he can get into a good college. Stephen replies writing that he is trying his best and looking up as many words as he can, but it takes time and memorizing spellings is too hard for him. As the term nears its end, Stephen reports his grades to his father, saying that although he got a C in English due to his spelling, his other grades were good enough that he was the top of his class. He asks what he should do about the Easter holiday. His father responds that Stephen's mother had just found a new house in Majorca and has invited him to spend the break with her. Excited, Stephen writes to his mother again, asking about travel plans. He also confesses to her that he spent four times as much money as he was supposed to and he was afraid that his father would be angry again. He asks he to write back soon because the break is almost upon them. A week later, Stephen writes another letter to his father explaining in gentle terms that he may have spent a little more money than he was supposed to again and that he was sorry. He also asks what he should do about Easter if his mother never responds.