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“I’ll come.”
“And I—”
Jack snatched from behind him a sizable sheath-knife and clouted it into a trunk. The buzz rose and died away.
Piggy stirred. “I’ll come.”
Ralph turned to him. “You're no good on a job like this.”
“All the same—”
“We don't want you,” said Jack, flatly.
“Three's enough.”
Piggy's glasses flashed.
“I was with him when he found the conch. I was with him before anyone else was.”
Jack and the others paid no attention. There was a general dispersal. Ralph, Jack and Simon jumped off the platform and walked along the sand past the bathing pool. Piggy hung bumbling behind them.
“If Simon walks in the middle of us,” said Ralph, “then we could talk over his head.”
The three of them fell into step. This meant that every now and then Simon had to do a double shuffle to eaten up with the others. Presently Ralph stopped and turned back to Piggy.
“Look.”
Jack and Simon pretended to notice nothing. They walked on.
“You can't come.”
Piggy's glasses were misted again—this time with humiliation.
“You told 'em. After what I said.”
His face flushed, his mouth trembled. “After I said I didn't want—”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“About being called Piggy. I said I didn't care as long as they didn't call me Piggy; an' I said not to tell and then you went an' said straight out—”
Stillness descended on them. Ralph, looking with more understanding at Piggy, saw that he was hurt and crushed. He hovered between the two courses of apology or further insult.
“Better Piggy than Fatty,” he said at last, with the directness of genuine leadership, “and anyway, I'm sorry if you feel like that. Now go back, Piggy, and take names. That's your job. So long.”
He turned and raced after the other two. Piggy stood and the rose of indignation faded slowly from his cheeks. He went back to the platform.
The three boys walked briskly on the sand. The tide was low and there was a strip of weed-strewn beach that was almost as firm as a road. A land of glamour was spread over them and the scene and they were conscious of the glamour and made happy by it. They turned to each other, laughing excitedly, talking, not listening. The air was bright Ralph, faced by the task of translating all this into an explanation, stood on his head and fell over. When they had done laughing, Simon stroked Ralph's arm shyly; and they had to laugh again.
“Come on,” said Jack presently, “we're explorers.”
“We'll go to the end of the island,” said Ralph, “and look round the corner.”
“If it is an island—”
Now, toward the end of the afternoon, the mirages were settling a little. They found the end of the island, quite distinct, and not magicked out of shape or sense. There was a jumble of the usual squareness, with one great block sitting out in the lagoon. Sea birds were nesting there.
“Like icing,” said Ralph, “on a pink cake.'
“We shan't see round this corner,” said Jack, “because there isn't one. Only a slow curve—and you can see, the rocks get worse—”
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