Lord of the Flies: Chapters 1-3

The fat boy waited to be asked his name in turn but this proffer of acquaintance was not made; the fair boy called Ralph smiled vaguely, stood up, and began to make his way once more toward the lagoon.

Piggy clasped his hands in apprehension.

It was clear to the bottom and bright with the efflorescence of tropical weed and coral.

Ralph had been deceived before now by the specious appearance of depth in a beach pool and he approached this one preparing to be disappointed.

With that word the heat seemed to increase till it became a threatening weight and the lagoon attacked them with a blinding effulgence.

He trotted through the sand, enduring the sun's enmity, crossed the platform and found his scattered clothes.

The shell was interesting and pretty and a worthy plaything; but the vivid phantoms of his day-dream still interposed between him and Piggy, who in this context was an irrelevance.

The note boomed again: and then at his firmer pressure, the note, fluking up an octave, became a strident blare more penetrating than before.

They were twins, and the eye was shocked and incredulous at such cheery duplication.

Even the choir applauded; and the freckles on Jack's face disappeared under a blush of mortification.

Now that the pallor of his faint was over, he was a skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and coarse.

Then, with the martyred expression of a parent who has to keep up with the senseless ebullience of the children, he picked up the conch, turned toward the forest, and began to pick his way over the tumbled scar.

His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination.

Jack stood there, streaming with sweat, streaked with brown earth, stained by all the vicissitudes of a day's hunting.

Jack nodded, as much for the sake of agreeing as anything, and by tacit consent they left the shelter and went toward the bathing pool.