The Spark

The Schism

The conch shell sounded, startling me out of my thoughts. Thinking it was Ralph, I walked out of the jungle and onto the beach, seating myself on one of the log benches. I looked into the middle of the ring, expecting to see Ralph.

I did a double-take when I realized it was Jack. He clutched the conch with the same grim determination that Ralph had on his face when he called the meeting about the beast. Except that where Ralph had been nearly shaking with fear, Jack had a cold, hard look to his eyes, his jaw set.

"What do you think he wants?" Piggy asked, sitting next to me. "Nothing good, I think."

"Maybe he wants to propose!!" Percival said excitedly, sitting next to me. I frowned.

"Definitely not. We're not getting married, Percival." Once everyone had settled in, Jack began to speak. Ralph sat on Piggy's opposite side, watching the choirboy carefully.

"I've called an assembly because of a lot of things," he began. "First, you know now, we've crawled up and we've seen the beast. We were only a few feet away, but the beast sat up and looked at us. I don't know what it does, but-"

"The beast comes out of the sea!" Bill declared.

"Out of the dark-" Percival said.

"-and the trees-" Johnny continued.

"Quiet!" Jack shouted. "The point is, the beast is sitting up there, whatever it is-"

"I think it's waiting," Henry said in a hushed voice, his face draining of blood.

"Hunting-yes, hunting," Johnny said. Percival whimpered and drew closer to me.

"Hunting," Jack said, nodding his head. "Yes, it's a hunter. The problem is, we couldn't kill it. And Ralph said my hunters are no good."

"I didn't say that!" Ralph protested, shooting to his feet.

"Quiet, let me finish!" Jack demanded. "Ralph thinks you're cowards-"

"Do not!"

"-running away from the beast and all. He's like-he's like Piggy, he says things like Piggy. He isn't a proper chief!"

"But he managed to keep us together this long," I said.

"Y/n, he doesn't care about us enough to want to keep doing it!" Jack exclaimed, rounding on me. "And it's because he's a coward too!"

"Am not!" Ralph folded his arms.

"Are too!" Jack shot back. Then he addressed us again. "He's not a hunter and he'd never have got us meat. He isn't a prefect and we don't know anything about him. He just gives us orders and expects us to obey for nothing."

"What's your point, Jack?" I asked, cutting across his monologue.

"Yes, all this talk is getting nowhere!" Ralph said angrily, sitting back down. Jack took a deep breath and clutched the conch with an air of importance.

"Who thinks Ralph oughtn't to be chief?" he asked, his voice strangely echoey. A silence fell over the island. Ralph not chief? What was to happen if he wasn't? If Jack was chief, he'd have all hunting and no fire, except to cook the meat with. We would be here until we died.

"Hands up," Jack said, knuckles whitening against the conch. "Who wants Ralph not to be chief?" He looked around at us all, his eyes begging and pleading for someone to agree with him. I couldn't meet his eyes, for fear that if I did, I would see the scared little boy desperate to prove himself to someone who couldn't care less about him.