Disclaimer: I do not own anything by William Golding nor any characters from Lord of the Flies (though I wish I did). Kitty is my original character. OK? ON WITH THE STORY!
Ralph: What story? OH NO NOT ANOTHER FANFIC ABOUT ME AND JACK AND THE OTHERS! WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LEARN TO GIVE US A BREAK!
Aerona: Well, too bad! You are a LITERARY CHARACTER you know, so you have to put up with people like ME writing inane stories about you!
Ralph: (grumbles)
Aerona: Oh, and by the way, did you know that you symbolise democracy?
Ralph: Yeah, and Jack symbolises boneheadedness...
(Jack pops up)
Jack: What was that?
Ralph: Nothin'.
Jack: OK.
Ralph: (coughcoughboneheadcough)
Jack: WHAT WAS THAT!
Aerona: Oh, man. Jack, please don't poke Ralph with your spear...
Jack: And why not? I can do what I want! On the island I am KING!
Aerona: And I am the great and mighty FANFIC WRITER! I can make you do whatever I want! (Makes Jack wear a grass skirt and coconuts)
Jack: HEY! I look-
Ralph: Great! (stifles giggles)
Kitty: Look, can we just get on with the story? I think you two are doing this just to NOT make me get my nice prologue...
Ralph: Whatever!
Jack: Yeah, you're just an original character anyway.
Kitty: Hey, I may not have been in the original book, but I am a character too, y'know! Bonehead!
(sounds of a scuffle)
Aerona: Well, let me start this story now, while Jack tries to extricate his grass skirt from his spear...
Prologue
Kitty stared with distaste at the suitcase neatly stacked in the corner of her room. The neat brown suitcase was emblazoned with labels of journeys past, plus one new one. Large and bold, it stood starkly out among the blotched, faded old labels.
Ripon Grammar School.
That was where she was going by train the next day. Kitty sighed and brushed a stray wisp of dark hair out of her eyes. It was no use moping about it, it had already been decided.
"Kitty! What are you doing standing there? We've got your cake ready! Come on!"
Kitty half-turned as her seven-year-old brother, Donald, cannoned into the room and hurled himself at her, tugging at her skirt. "Come on, Kitty! Don't you want to see how Mother and I iced it?"
Reluctantly smiling, the girl gently disentangled Donald's clasping fingers. "Sure, Donny. I was just… thinking for a moment."
The lights were off in the dining room, and the cake dominated the table. Not much of a cake, it was true, but Kitty approved of the love that had been put into it by her family-it also had probably taken up the whole of the next week's butter ration. The flames from the candles flickered, reaching up to the ceiling and casting eerie shadows on the dim room. The cake had been fantastically iced by Donny, with the maximum of icing but the minimum of taste. Slightly lopsided, straggling calligraphy trailed across its surface, reading: Hapy Birthday Kitty. Come Back Soon.
"Isn't it lovely?" Donald capered around the table. "An' I was really careful with the spelling, I asked Mother for every single word!"
Kitty neglected to mention the hapy, instead hugging her little brother and ruffling his curls. "It's wonderful, Donny! And I'll be back before you know it, you'll see!"
"Kitty…" Her mother stepped out from behind the table. Although her face was care-worn and her utility dress was faded, the flickering light from the candle flames did nothing except illuminate the love in her eyes.
"Happy birthday, darling." Kitty's mother held out her arms and her daughter gladly rushed into them. Mother and daughter held each other as if they would never let go.
"Mother-must I really go?"
"I think it would be for the best, dear. We all need a bit of time to get over-" Here she broke off and Kitty followed her gaze to the framed photograph of her father that hung on the wall. The picture had been taken the day before her father had left to fight in the war. He was standing, tall and proud, with his arms around Donald and Kitty, a fearless smile on his face, wearing his immaculate uniform. Had it just been yesterday, or years ago that he had hugged his daughter, told her not to worry, he would be back soon? How long had it really been since he had left to fight?
He hadn't come back.
Donny's piping voice broke into all of their thoughts. "Mummy-how did Daddy die?"
There it was again-the flash of dull pain that Kitty had noticed more and more often in her mother's eyes. She wanted to shake Donny for asking the question. A taboo had evolved around the circumstances of their father's death, and Kitty had always forestalled herself from asking about it. But now Donny had brought the subject up, Kitty couldn't help but be overwhelmed with curiosity. She knew nothing about it except the brown telegram that had arrived in the post one morning, and her mother's expression as she had opened it.
When her mother spoke again, her voice was husky.
"Your father was a very brave man. He died doing what was right-fighting against the Enemy. Always remember that and hold your heads up high, for you have a father who gave his all to our country."
An unbidden pricking behind her eyes made Kitty turn away. She knew that this was not the only reason she was being sent away. Apart from the pain, she had seen something else in her mother's eyes.
Fear. She's afraid.
Kitty did not know why. Maybe it had something to do with the whispers, although the war against Germany had been fought and won, the rumours of more violence, the rumours that had the words "Russia" and "holocaust" inexplicably bound up with them. To Kitty, Russia was a long way away, and so was whatever trouble that was on the rise.
But that didn't explain why her mother was scared.
Her reverie was interrupted by her remaining family singing "Happy Birthday", Donny's piping, childish voice mingling with their mother's soprano.
"Happy birthday, dear Kitty,
Happy birthday to you…"
Willing a smile on her face, Kitty turned back to her family, determined to enjoy her thirteenth birthday, if only for her mother's sake.
The next day saw them at Paddington Station, Kitty dressed in her new school uniform of navy blue pinafore, grey school shirt and blue and grey tie. Her heart was thumping under the uniform. She had never been to Paddington Station before, and it was so big! Boys and girls in identical blue-and-grey uniforms milled around. Each of them looked like they knew exactly where to go. Kitty had the uncomfortable sensation that she was fading into a huge, roiling cauldron of people, all exactly the same as her, and no one would ever find her again.
She gave herself a mental shake. Don't be silly.
"Can you find your way from here, Kitty?" Her mother was trying hard to disguise the sadness in her eyes.
Kitty threw her arms around her mother. Donny wriggled into the middle of them for a family hug.
"Don't worry, Mother. I'll be fine."
"Bye then, darling."
As she watched her family walk off, Kitty fought the tears that were struggling to flow. To fight the misery, she turned her thoughts to more pressing matters.
I lied just now, she thought. I have no idea where to go!
She pushed her way through the chattering crowd, willing herself to notice something, anything that would point her in the right direction. A sigh escaped her lips as she realised that she was well and truly stumped.
"Lost?" Kitty whirled around, to find herself looking into a pair of warm brown eyes. She felt heat rise from beneath her collar and suffuse her face. Had it been that obvious?
"I said, are you lost?" The boy who had spoken repeated his sentence. Fair hair framed an oval, friendly face and there was a smile dancing in his eyes, although his face was serious. To save her embarrassment? He looked around a year older than her, and was dressed in the boy's version of her school uniform. From the same school, then.
"Y-yes..." Kitty stammered.
"First-year, are you? Well, see that carriage? That's where you have to go. Your form mistress will be there. Old Andrews is a good sort, but you want to watch her when she gets waxy!"
"Thanks!" Kitty just managed to get the word out when the fair boy was swallowed out of sight by the crowd.
A/N: Yay! finally I can start on the real story! And I'm sure everyone can guess who the boy she met was... Ah well, must get on with the next chapter. Poor Kitty, she didn't have a very happy birthday, did she? It's gonna get worse...