Holden's conversation with Phoebe results in his ultimate decision to go home. At first, she is determined to leave with him, having brought her essentials in one of his old suitcases. He says she cannot go. She refuses to return to school and insists that she does not even care about her role as Benedict Arnold or missing the play. Holden's decision to return home is suspiciously easy. Supposedly to get Phoebe to stop crying, he says he has changed his mind and is not leaving. He notices, though, that she is not crying at the time he makes this decision.
The touching final scene of Holden's long flashback, his story, takes place at the carrousel in the park outside of the zoo. The great thing about a carrousel, for Holden, is that it has beauty and music and even motion, but it doesn't go anywhere. Nothing really changes. However, not everyone wants things to stay the way they are. Symbolically, Phoebe and the other kids want to grab the gold ring hanging just beyond reach on each rotation. If they can grab the gold ring, they can win the prize, whatever that might be. In life, too, it is natural for young people to want to take a risk and try for something beyond what they have. Even Holden, taking an initial step toward maturity or change, concedes that, when kids long to "grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it. . . . If they fall off, they fall off. . . ."
