Add an extra 150 words to this that can be useful but extra I believe what Jerry felt is a universal emotion that everyone wants to feel like. What he did was assert his dominance over swimming and diving, Jerry showed what he could do and felt accepted after they cleared a path for him to swim. Even though they didn’t speak the same language as Jerry doesn’t mean he could not be accepted. The boys and Jerry felt the same for each other because Jerry wanted to be with them and just like them while they just liked Jerry for his dive and swim technique. I believe its a universal emotion because I think everyone feels this one point in their lives and has a similar experience like this story. I personally experienced this, wanting to feel accepted into a group of people and it’s sad if you don’t get accepted but you don’t give up till you see there’s no hope or you get accepted in and feel that feeling of acceptance. I’m guessing that most to all kids experience this when they want to make friends or want to be part of something like a group. The character Jerry can relate to almost any kid trying to make friends or be in a friend group, it can definitely relate to me, specifically a time when I was in 1st grade and I had little to no friends and kept trying to join this group who couldn’t bare to be with me at all so eventually I just gave up. The group of boys seemed to acknowledge Jerry at first but didn’t seem to care till he began to dive and swim, then Jerry felt accepted when they made a path for him to swim. Then one of the boys swam through a cave and freaked Jerry out because he was underwater for way too long. Then the other boys jumped in and swam through the cave and freaked Jerry out even more because they were underwater for 160 seconds. I personally would be scared as well because I have no idea what’s going on since they speak a different language.