Read the excerpt below from the novel It by Stephen King and answer the question that follows.



Richie had felt a mad, exhilarating kind of energy growing in the room. . . . He thought he recognized the feeling from his childhood, when he felt it everyday and had come to take it merely as a matter of course. He supposed that, if he had ever thought about that deep-running aquifer of energy as a kid (he could not recall that he ever had), he would have simply dismissed it as a fact of life, something that would always be there, like the color of his eyes . . . .

Well, that hadn't turned out to be true. The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itself—that slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four, to be replaced by something much duller . . . purpose, maybe, or goals . . . .

Source: King, Stephen. It. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.



Which theme would be advanced by the tone in the above passage best?

Despite age and experience, some people never grow up.
Childhood has a magical quality that slips away.
Don't take childhood for granted.
Children should be given the chance to expand their vast energy.