Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

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.

Ralph flushed, looking sideways at Piggy’s open admiration, and then the other way at Jack who was smirking and showing that he too knew how to clap.

Lying there in the darkness, he knew he was an outcast. “ ’Cos I had some sense.”

And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.