Warnings: none
Note: As if have already mentioned, I am a German student. My English teacher (I am eternally thankful for this!!!) assigned us to read LOTF, but we only got a shortened version! How mean. Now I got myself the complete story and I am rereading it, seeing how much I have missed.
7 Contradictory

Jack felt joy pulsing through his veins while he prepared a small breakfast consisting of fruit and clear water that he had fetched in the early morning hours while Ralph had slept for a short time. He whistled and hummed and felt an urge to sing like he hadn't ever since he had been the part of a choir. But he knew that he was still going through the change of voice and that singing would probably sound horrible.

His fair-haired companion lay awake but still on his skins. He was listening to the almost homely sounds of preparing a meal and cheerful humming. For a real long time he had resented being around the Chief, but now it felt good and natural. They had become friends, and this time Ralph was confident that their bond of friendship would be stronger than the first time they had met.

He got up and took a slice of one of the big, yellowish fruits that resembled melons in look and taste. They ate in content silence, until both heard a shuffling noise outside the hut.

Jack got up and opened the door of pigskins. A strange sight greeted him. Outside the hut a little crowd of boys stood, most of them biguns. Samneric were there, Maurice, Robert, Harold, and half hidden by the tall twins, Roger. A bit to the side some littluns stood, gaping curiously at their Chief. Now they began whispering with hushed voices.

"What is up?" Jack asked them. Something must have happened. They looked at him nervously, and then their looks wandered to the twins.

It was Maurice who spoke first.

"Samneric told us that Ralph was..."

".. normal again?" Robert finished with a questioning look at his leader.

The whispering of the littluns became more excitedly and the twins were shuffling on their feet with discomfort.

"They said they saw him."

"So is it true?"

"It is," he said. What were they up to? Was Ralph still that interesting after all these years?

"Jack?" A voice asked from behind him. Ralph peered above his shoulder and instantly shied back when he saw the crowd. Jack frowned and held him by his shoulder. With a firm grip he dragged the fair-haired boy out of the shelter and next to him into the daylight. He felt him shiver under his hold when all the prying stares fell on him.

Ralph didn't want to shy away from them, but they scared him immensely. It had been different to just meet the baffled twins. Now there was a crowd, a mass of faces, some very unfamiliar, and some even masked.

These were the faces that haunted him.

Everyone sucked in breath when the Chief pulled Ralph out from behind him. The boy who had once been their leader with the shining conch but who they also remembered as a sobbing, raving lunatic.

He didn't look much more convincing now. But the Chief had said it was true that he wasn't batty anymore.

"Talk to them," Jack hissed.

Ralph's eyes darted around. He caught sight of Roger, who had a cold sneer plastered across his painted face and shuddered slightly.

Would they hate him?

Would they hunt him?

What would Jack do?

He looked at the anxious twins and at the littluns with their gawking faces.

Did they remember him?

As what?

As the madman, as the prey?

Did they remember the hunt and the dance?

Did they remember Simon, Simon and Piggy?

Did they remember the boy with the conch whom they had elected their Chief?

He murmured words, soundless, that stuck in his throat.

Jack felt tenser with every passing second. Was this too much for the frail boy?

"I am here," he hard him say, very quietly, but audibly. His voice was still quivering, as he repeated his new mantra.

"I am here." He raised his gaze to look at their faces.

"Yes, I am sane again."

The twins grinned at each other, relieved and victorious. Some of the littluns followed their example and soon everyone felt more or less relived. Only Roger's face was cold as ever, and his eyes bore an indistinct anger.

The twins were first to make a further move. They came towards them and patted Ralph on the shoulders, who laughed bravely despite his still lingering fear of the crowd.

The littluns who didn't half understand what was going on – not only were most of them very simple in mind, they also had forgotten a lot of the old day's happenings – were jumping up and down excitedly and crying for a feast.

"The others!"

"Let's call everyone together!"

"A feast!"

"A big feast!"

"An assembly!"

"A big fire!"

Jack was nearly giving his okay for the idea, when his eyes met Ralph.

"Is this okay for you?" he asked insecurely.

"I'll have to attend it," Ralph said quietly.

"You needn't."

"Yes I do. Someday I will have to, I think. So let's do it now, when everyone is still cheerful."

The rest of the day was spent with busy work and preparing the celebration. Officially it was just "a feast", but everyone knew that Ralph would be there and that made it special. It wasn't that Ralph was overly popular with the boys, although most of them had somehow liked or admired him once. But they were curious as kittens once the news spread among them.

Jack chose the place where they would celebrate. He sent the twins as leaders of two hunting parties. The boys who weren't hunting were ordered to get fruits and wood for a big fire.

He chose a place near the river, to have fresh water close, and they build up a huge pyramid of wood in the sand of the beach. The mood was happy and excited as it hadn't been for months.

Ralph sat in the shadows of the tall palms and trees and watched them. He felt save, were he was, outside the crowd, and in the broad light of day. And he was also bemused by how well everything functioned.

What had once seemed like destructive chaos was now a happy, peaceful and regular little society. Now that Jack was the unquestioned Chief he had relaxed a lot and was actually a very good leader to them.

Whenever Jack could steal a second he came over to Ralph, sweaty and grinning.

"It's going well, isn't it?" he asked proudly.

Ralph nodded.

"They seem very happy."

Jack slumped down next to him in the fine white sand.

"But what about you, Ralph? This is to celebrate your 'return'. Aren't you happy, too?"

Ralph smiled.

"I'm very happy, Jack. I'm happy because I see that everything is peaceful and alright."

"You doubted that," Jack said darkly, his brightness gone.

"Yes. Back then it seemed like your tribe had no rules, no order. It seemed like chaos, ruled by frantic violence."

"It worked out rather well," Jack said in a gruff voice. "I was the better leader after all. You failed and I succeeded."

"We'll still have to see that."

Jack frowned and got to his feet very abruptly.

"Well then," he said and walked away to the others.