Lord of the Flies short story
Chapter 2.5: Lost in the Woods “The older boys first noticed the child when he resisted. There was a group of little boys urging him forward and he did not want to go. He was a shrimp of a boy, about six years old, and one side of his face was blotted out by a mulberry-colored birthmark. He stood now, warped out of the perpendicular by the fierce light of publicity, and he bored into the coarse grass with one toe. He was muttering and about to cry. The other little boys, whispering but serious, pushed him toward Ralph. ‘All right,’ said Ralph, ‘come on then.’ The small boy looked around in panic. ‘Speak up!’ The small boy held out his hands for the conch and the assembly shouted with laughter; at once he snatched back his hands and started to cry. ‘Let him have the conch!’ shouted Piggy. ‘Let him have it!’ At last Ralph induced him to hold the shell but by then the blow of laughter had taken away the child’s voice. Piggy knelt by him, one hand on the great shell, listening and interpreting to the assembly. ‘He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake-thing.’ Ralph laughed, and the other boys laughed with him.” “Fine! They can believe whatever they want to believe!” Cameron sat in the yellowing grass, surrounded by daffodils and other flowers he couldn’t name. “Fine! If they want to be eaten by the beastie, they can go ahead and laugh about it!” He glanced around. Everything around him was so great and tall! The trees towered over him, just like the Runners that time his mommy took him to his grandfather’s. His grandfather worked as a Runner, but he wasn’t as tall as the rest of the scary men who worked with him. Cameron wasn’t sure what the Runners did; he just liked the name. He enjoyed listening to Grandpa Edward’s stories from work. They were all mostly the same, with him and his friends chasing the bad guys, and then getting some shiny round things when they caught them. Grandpa Ed really enjoyed getting them, but Cameron couldn’t understand what was so good about them. They were heavy, cold, dirty, and un-smooth. And they tasted bad. Cameron came back from his memories of Grandpa Edward. How much he wanted to see him, and especially to see him bring some of his Runners and run after Ralph and the rest of the biguns and punish them. Because Ralph was mean. He wasn’t as scary as Jack, but he was mean! How could he laugh at such a scary thing as a beastie? Looking around once again, Cameron tried to remember how he got there. He couldn’t hear any voices and there was no living creature anywhere near. Where was Ralph? Where was the scary, fat kid with the glasses? Where was everyone? When the meeting ended and the chief and the rest of the boys ran off, Cameron tried to follow them, but the others were too fast, and he soon found himself alone among the tall trees.