The sound of the shell - Chapter 1

Two schoolboys meet in the jungle, in a lagoon. One boy is tall and blond, the other is smaller, a bit fat and wears glasses. The blond boy thinks they are on an island. It appears that the boys were in a plane with a large group of other boys, and that after an attack they seem to have made an emergency landing on the island, but the plane is nowhere to be found. They realize that there are probably no adults on the island!

The fat boy asks the blond boy for his name and he answers that his name is Ralph. Ralph does not ask the fat boy for his name, but starts to walk towards the sea. When the fat boy asks him if he has seen the other boys from the plane, Ralph doesn't seem very interested. He starts to walk faster and the fat boy can't keep up with him anymore because of his asthma.

Ralph arrives at the beach, which is full of palm trees. In the distance, the waves break on a coral reef, but there is no land in sight. The water is calm between the beach and the reef. It is also very hot. Twelve-year-old Ralph decides to take off his clothes to make the heat more bearable. In the meantime, the fat boy has also arrived at the beach. He is as uncertain as he sees Ralph, who takes of his windbreaker and appears to have the muscular body of a boxer.

The fat boy proposes to look for the other boys and organize a meeting. Ralph is not interested until the fat boy says he hopes the other boys don't name him by the name he was given at school. When the fat boy says he was called "Piggy," Ralph laughs loudly and immediately takes over the name. He jumps around and shouts "Piggy, Piggy, Piggy!" Piggy seems to be somewhat sad because of this at first, but after Ralph has done this for a while he seems to feel a slight satisfaction that he gets so much recognition from Ralph at all.

Meanwhile Ralph is laughed at, and he walks along the beach until he comes across a large, pink piece of granite that rises above the sand and water. There is a layer of soil on this piece of stone and some young palm trees provide shade. A few fallen palm trees provide good places to sit on. On the other side of the granite platform is a water basin, protected by accumulated sand. The water is deep and Ralph dives into it.

Moments later Piggy joins in and after an uncertain moment he undresses completely and goes into the water. He doesn't go that deep, because he never learned to swim because of his asthma. However, he also does not think that Ralph can swim well. Ralph disagrees; he already learned to swim from his father, a commander in the navy, when he was only five years old. Piggy tells that his father died and that he lives with his aunt, who has a candy store where he got as much candy as he wanted.

Piggy asks Ralph when his father will come to rescue them and how he will know where they are. Ralph doesn't know this very well either, but says that they will tell his father at the airport. Piggy doesn't know for sure, because he has heard the pilot say that an atomic bomb has fallen and that everyone who knows where they are is now dead.

The boys leave the water again, get dressed and sit on a fallen palm tree on the platform. Piggy again proposes to find the other boys. Ralph still does not respond to this and seems wandered of with his thoughts. He interrupts Piggy by pointing to a shell in the lagoon. Piggy is excited and with the help of a palm branch the boys take the shell out of the water. The shell is colored cream white with a hint of pink in some places. While Ralph studies the 45-centimeter-long shell, Piggy rattles on about a similar shell that once belonged to someone he knew.

Piggy suddenly comes up with the idea of ​​blowing on the shell and calling the other boys to him in this way. Piggy assumes that that is also the reason that Ralph wanted to take the shell out of the water, while Ralph actually saw it more as a fun pastime. Ralph, however, does not go against Piggy and asks him how Piggy thinks they should blew the shell. Piggy explains it to Ralph, but no sound comes out the first time. The second time the shell only makes a kind of fart sound, which makes the two boys laugh a lot. Eventually Ralph manages to get a deep sound out of the shell. He blows several times, until he is out of breath.

After not too long a child of about six years old comes from among the palm trees. His clothes are torn and his face is covered with sticky fruit remnants. Piggy helps the kid up on the platform while Ralph keeps blowing on the shell. The boy introduces himself as Johnny. Piggy also calls his name to Ralph, but he is too busy with the shell.

More and more children appear on the beach, and approach the platform. Following the example of Ralph and Piggy, the boys sit down one by one on the fallen palm trees. While Ralph continues to blow, Piggy asks all children for their names and tries to remember them all. The children are just as docile as they were with the men with the megaphones who apparently were present before the boys got into trouble with the plane. Some are naked, others half, others wear their school uniforms. They all speculate about Ralph; something is going on!

Twins with rope-like hair are also coming to the platform. They seem alike in everything and introduce themselves as Sam and Eric. Ralph stops blowing on the shell and focuses on the beach, where a group of boys in black uniforms march in two parallel rows. The leader of the group enters the platform and asks where the man with the trumpet is. If Ralph says that only he is there, the leader of the group is not satisfied; he had hoped for a ship.

The leader of the group appears to be Jack Merridew and the group is a choir. The other boys in the choir clearly follow their leader Jack, because even though the sand is very hot, they stand still when Jack asks them to. That is only until a boy faints because of the heat. Jack tries to transform the situation for the group by saying that this boy, named Simon, always faints, which results in the giggling of the choir. Piggy does not ask the boys of the choir for their names, because he feels intimidated by the boys in uniform. Piggy asks for the names anyway. Halfway through Jack interrupts Piggy and says "the fat guy talks too much". Ralph calls that his name is not Fatty, but Piggy. The other boys also take over the name immediately. Piggy is intimidated and he blushes.

Jack says that a decision has to be made about how the boys will be saved, and Ralph suggests that they must choose a leader. Jack immediately puts himself forward because he is also the leader of the choir and that he can on-key. A dark-haired boy, Roger, proposes to vote for a leader. Although Piggy is clearly the smartest and Jack seems to be the best leader, the boys choose Ralph as the leader. This because of his strong and muscular body, his silent power and of course because of the shell in his hands.

Ralph assigns the choir to Jack and he decides that they will be hunters. Ralph states that they cannot immediately decide what they are going to do, but that they must first know for sure whether they are actually on an island. For this Ralph puts together a group consisting of himself, Jack and Simon, to climb the mountain together and view the surroundings. Piggy wants to come too, but Ralph says he's not fit for a job like this. If Piggy however still insists, Jack says quite loudly that they don't want him there and that three men are enough to fulfill the job. Piggy is still trying to persuade them to say that he was first among them when Ralph found the shell, but the boys pay no attention to him and walk away. Piggy goes after them and tells Ralph that he the group has named him Piggy, while Piggy asked him not to. Ralph hesitates for a moment to saying sorry or to further humiliate Piggy, but he ultimately decides to say that Piggy is still a better nickname than Fatty. Then he sends Piggy back to the group to record everyone's name.

Ralph, Jack and Simon walk across the beach to the end of the island. They are in a cheerful mood because they are assigned the job of the explorers. From the end of the island they cannot go any further because there are many rocks on the beach. They decide to go up the mountain from there. The climb is steep and it is difficult to get through all the vegetation. Although the boys are covered with scratches and it is very hot, they are still delighted. Jack thinks that no one has ever been where they are now and Ralph thinks they should actually draw a map, but there is no paper. Simon proposes to scratch the card in a tree bark.

When the boys finally come out of the lagoon, the top of the mountain is in sight. However, they find a loose rock with the size of a car and decide to roll it off the mountain. The boulder falls down the mountain through the trees and the boys feel that this as a triumph that will make the final steps to the top easier. Once at the top, they look around and see that they are indeed on an island. The island has the shape of a boat. On both sides are rocks, cliffs, treetops and a steep slope, in front of them they see a less steep descent with trees and they can see beyond the jungle. There is a second island just next to their island; which looks like a rock that sticks out of the water like a fortress. The coral reef is visible until about a mile from the coast at 'their' beach. The boys also see the hole in the jungle where their plane has apparantly landed.

Ralph notes that there is no smoke or a boat anywhere, so the island is probably uninhabited. The boys enjoy the idea that they have the island all to themselves until Simon says that he is hungry. They climb down again and suddenly hear sounds of hooves on the path. A piglet is stuck in the vegetation. Jack takes out his knife and raises his arm, but then doubts whether to go through. In that pause, the three boys realize what is happening to Jack. Suddenly the piglet comes loose and runs away. The boys look at each other in shock, then smile our of embarrassment and decide to climb back to the path.

Jack says a moment later that he just waited a moment to determine where he would put the animal to kill it. There is some discussion about how to slaughter a pig. The three boys, however, all know why Jack did not strike: how horrible it would be to cut the knife into living flesh because of the blood. Merridew suggests not to show any compassion for the animal the next time. The other boys don't argue with this. The boys go looking for fruit.

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