The correct answer is C. Jerry challenges himself for more.
Being a young boy, he has felt for a long time as if he was in charge of his mother and vice versa. Both of them are overprotective. Jerry seeks independence, yet he is afraid of abandoning his widowed mother. When he separates from her to go to another beach, he feels as if he was betraying her. But his urge to go his own way is stronger. True, he feels the peer pressure of those boys, and is afraid of not being able to beat the challenge they posed for him. But his real, deep and intimate urge is to challenge himself, and not compete with them. When he dives through that tunnel under the sea, he risks his life. But he doesn't give up, as that venture is his own, and he wants to experience it. Once he beat that challenge, he goes back to his mother, calm and serene, and doesn't even feel a need to tell her about it. He is more mature and independent now than he was at the beginning of the story.
