Jonas has broken three rules when he escapes with Gabriel. In Jonas’s community, when a person breaks three rules, he is released. Jonas counts the rules that he breaks as he escapes, knowing that he is writing his own death sentence. Gabriel is already condemned.
It was not safe to spend time looking back. He thought of the rules he had broken so far: enough that if he were caught, now, he would be condemned. (Ch. 21)
The first rule that he breaks is being outside of his house at night, which he describes as a “major transgression.” Second, he takes food with him, just leftovers, but he describes that as “a serious crime.” Food is tightly controlled in the community.
The last thing he did was take his father’s bicycle. The reason he took his father’s bicycle instead of using his own was that he needed to have a way to carry Gabe.
He had hesitated for a moment, standing beside the bikeport in the darkness, not wanting anything of his father's and uncertain, as well, whether he could comfortably ride the larger bike when he was so accusto
