Dear Diary. 18th June 1949, 8.15am
My mum just gave me a soft cover book about the size of my hand. It’s plain black leather (it is probably fake leather, no offense) with hundreds of blank rusty-white coloured pages, you know the pages that pirates draw there maps on? Yeah just like that, except the edges aren’t burnt. She said you were a diary so that’s what I’m calling you. Diary. Apparently I’m meant to write in you whenever I feel lonely and need an extra friend. Like, write my thoughts or something even though you can’t talk back to me... but I may as well start by introducing myself anyway. My name is Simon and I’m 11 years old. I have epilepsy and when I don’t take my medication I get a bloody nose and sometimes start shaking lots. I think my mum gave me you to write in because I don’t like to talk. When other people are around I get really quiet, but I can write and write for days. Mum gave you to me now because our town is in the middle of a war and we have to be evacuated from school today. My mum seems really sad, but I’m excited to go on a plane, it will be my first time. I can hear my mum yelling from the kitchen, it’s time for me to go eat breakfast or else I’ll be late for school. Well, it was nice to meet you diary. Hopefully we’ll talk soon; it could be a few days though with this whole evacuation thing. But I’ll do my best to keep you updated. As my dad would say “Cheerio”.
Dear Diary.
I would write the day and time but I have no idea what day it is let alone what time so sorry about that. And I apologise about my bad handwriting, my hands are shaking out of control. Not because it’s cold, because I haven’t taken my medication. Let me tell you about my day Diary, well what I remember of it anyway. I was sitting in class when all of a sudden we heard a loud and thundery BANG like thunder followed by a trail of smoke gliding through the outside of our school. The war at our town had come sooner than it was meant to and we had to be evacuated onto planes as soon as possible. Our teacher was trying to be calm but I could see the nervous sweat start to slide down his face as he rushed us outside. There were kids running and screaming everywhere. All of a sudden I wasn’t excited to go on a plane anymore. As soon as my plane was full of kids we took off... But we weren’t’ the only ones. No matter which way you looked there were little planes above, below in front and behind us. It was only a matter of time before they started shooting at us. And that’s all I remember. I woke up with a headache and covered from head to toe in dirt… That was the smallest of my worries. My main worry is WHERE THE HELL AM I! It’s obvious I’m on an island; I can see the ocean that looks out to nowhere. To my left there are rocks, all perfectly piles up on each other, by accident though. To my right there is thick bush and I’m guessing that’s where the thorn I plucked out of my behind earlier is form. When I look up, it’s like a jungle with trees swaying in the wind and the vines tying them all together. There seems to be no one else around... To any other boy this would be frightening. But I like to be alone, I always have. My mum use to worry about me but I’m much more comfortable when it’s just me I have to talk to, or you, Diary. Wait there a second, I think I can hear something... I just ran and climbed up the rocks, I can see down on the beach a small figure blowing into something. It’s like a loud horn noise. The other boys from the plane I was in must be here also. As much as I’d just love to stay and lie here, I better go see what it’s all about. Talk soon Diary.
Dear Diary
I have a lot to catch you up on! By the time I fought my way down through the dense bush and down to the horn noise (Which was actually a conch, and has now turned into out talking conch, like whoever holds it gets to talk, or else we all just talk at once) Anyway where was I.. Oh right, there were already lots of boys down there. I recognised most them from the plane even though they were covered with mud and cuts just like me, nothing serious though. All the boys looked to be 13 and under. The two oldest boys are called Jack and Ralph. Jack is the leader of some younger boys called the “littluns” and they all belong to a choir. Us older ones are called the “biguns”. When I first got down there we stood in line and took turns saying our name but when it got to my turn I got really dizzy and fainted. When I woke up I noticed the boys had moved me to shade and they were talking about how we need a leader. We all voted and Ralph one, I voted for him because I really like him. Jack wasn’t happy. The boys thought I fainted because of the heat and maybe because I was scared but I know it was because of my epilepsy. Ralph our new leader said his dad works in the navy and he’ll be looking for us but in the time we should explore the island. Ralph decided him and Jack should go because they are the oldest but they needed one more to go and look for them. Everyone put their hand up at the chance except for me but Ralph chose me anyway. When I stood up to go I heard a few of the other boys whispering things like “queer” and “batty”. I don’t know what those words mean because we don’t use those words at my school.
Dear Diary
This island we are on, it’s magical! Tropical, my mum would say. We are surrounded with lagoons, reefs, mountains and jungle. It’s roughly boat-shaped and almost like a playground. We found fruit to eat and we saw a pig, well we heard it first. It came right up to us so Jack got his knife out but for some reason he didn’t kill it. It was almost like he was too scared, he would never admit that though. We got back down and Ralph blew the conch again to let the other boys know we were having another meeting. By the end of the meeting we had a plan. Jack and his boys were going to gather the food while the rest of us built shelters. Ralph also said it is very important to build a fire so we have a constant smoke signal passing over our island in case any planes or ships go past. He said we will be taking turns at keeping the fire going because it’s out main chance of getting rescued. We lit the fire with one of the boy’s glasses, his name is Piggy. Littluns Sam and Eric (twins) watched the fire first and the rest of us went swimming. We didn’t swim much but used the water to clean ourselves. It’s time to go to sleep now in the shelters we built today. Good night Diary.
P.s. I forgot to tell you, at the meeting today one of the littluns said they had seen a beastie. When me, Jack and Ralph checked out the island we didn’t see anything. Jack said him and his choir will find it and kill it anyway.
Dear Diary
Sorry I haven’t written in a few days, I didn’t have much to say. My last few days involved swimming, eating fruit, re-building shelters and fire watching. But today the first fight happened. A plane went flying over the mountain and Jacks boys were meant to be keeping the fire and smoke signal going but instead they were out hunting the pig with Jack. By the time me and Ralph raced up the mountain the fire had gone out and there was no smoke signal for the plane to see. Even though Jack and his boys did catch a pig, Ralph wasn’t happy. Here’s how the argument went:
Jack: “Look! We’ve killed a pig – we stole up on them – we got in a circle – we crept up, the pig squealed”
Ralph: “You let the fire go out”
Jack: “We can light the fire again. You should have been with us Ralph. We had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over –“
One of Jacks hunters: “We hit the pig –“
Another one of Jacks hunters: “- I fell on top –“
Jack: “I cut the pig’s throat, you should have seen it! We’ll go hunting every day!”
Ralph: “You let the fire go out.”
Jack: “We had to have them in the hunt, or there wouldn’t have been enough for a ring around the pig. The fire’s only been out an hour or two. We can light it up again”
Ralph was staring at the ground. You could see his face turning red.
Jack: “You should have seen the blood!”
Ralph: “There was a plane. There was a plane! Out there! You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out!”
Ralph then took a step towards Jack, who turned and faced him. All us other boys were sitting there in silence.
Ralph: “They might have seen us! We might have gone home. You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home!”
After the argument, we re-lit the fire and cooked the pig. Jack didn't let Piggy eat any because he didn’t help hunt, but neither did I, so I gave Piggy some of mine. I don’t think I should have done that though because Jack screwed up his nose and eyes and stared at me. I’m sitting up on a hill by myself while I’m writing this. I wandered off from the group like I have been the last few days. The boys never ask why I leave or where I’m going because I always come back. I guess they just think I’m going for a swim or to get more food but I just like to get away for a bit and be by myself. Lucky I have you to understand me Diary.
Dear Diary
This morning one of the “littluns” (a different one to last time) said they saw the ‘beastie' again last night hanging around our shelter. I nervously took the conch because I had something to say. The only other time I have spoken in front of these boys was on the first day when I had to say my name. This is what I managed to spit out “Maybe there is no actual beast, maybe the beast is within us?” My comment was quickly ignored. But I truly believe that there isn’t a beast. I have seen nearly every part of this island and I have seen it on my own. Surely if there was a beast I would have seen it by now? Or it would have come after me and at least tries to scare me. I am an easy target, a little boy walking around by myself without a weapon. All the talk about the beast got Jack very fired up and all he wanted to do was go hunting and kill the beast. Ralph talked him out of it and instead he said that all the ‘bigguns’ should go looking for it. Piggy stayed back to look after the ‘littluns’ and we all set off into the bush. Piggy can’t run or go for big walks because he has something called ‘ass mar’?
We had been searching for hours with no sign of a beast anywhere and then we found a big lagoon area surrounded with sand and rocks. Jack kept saying it would be the perfect place to build a shelter and make a fort. When it started to get late, Ralph asked if someone could go back down and tell Piggy that we may be a while because Piggy gets scared easily. I shot my hand up into the air; actually, I was the only one who wanted to go back down the bush. So here I am again sitting in the bush by myself, writing. The others are going to keep climbing up past the lagoon to a place that none of us have been to yet because it looks too hard to get up and over the cliff. I better go down and let Piggy know what’s going on. He will be getting worried.
Dear Diary
I woke up this morning to long hair and painted faces. Jack and his choir boys have left the group and made new shelters in a different part of the mountain…I bet it’s in that lagoon part of the mountain we found yesterday. They call themselves ‘the hunters’ because all they want to do is hunt and kill the beast. My mum would call them a “bunch of savages”. They have made new sharp sticks to kill the beasts with and many of the other boys have joined Jack because he promised them meat for every meal. I stayed with Ralph, along with Piggy and the ‘littluns’ Sam and Eric. Ralph has gone to talk to Jack at his new base and I’ve wandered into the bush to give you an update. It all started last night when the boys returned home from looking for the beast. They were out of breath but still trying to spit out everything they saw. The littluns were screaming, one was even crying I think as Ralph was spitting out sentences but all I managed to hear was:
“The beast had teeth”
“Big black eyes”
“And a big white cape”
“I don’t think we’d fight anything that size, we’d hide. Even Jack would hide.”
It was that last statement that got Jack fired up and the argument went out of control. Jack became obsessed with hunting the beast and killing it. He didn’t even want a fire anymore, did he not want to be rescued? I want us to all be back together as one group again. I’m going to go find the beast they saw last night. I’m going to try and talk to the beast. Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt us. Maybe he’s as scared as we are.
Dear Diary
You’ll never guess what I just found! I went to the exact place that Ralph and Jack said they saw the beast. It wasn’t an easy climb, I think I’m bleeding but that’s the least of my worries. By the time I got to the top of the rocks I could see everything. First I saw a big white sheet. It had a lot of rips and cuts all through it and I could also see a whole lot of strings connected to it. I had studied these in school one, it’s called a parachute. People wear them when they jumped out of planes so they could drop slowly and land on the land safely. And then that’s when it hit me. The beast that the boys had seen last night was just this man with a parachute on his back. When I got down closer I could see the man. It was obvious he was dead but I could still see the uniform he was wearing. He must have been the pilot driving our aeroplane but he managed to jump out just before it crashed. I wonder if he had been here the whole time. I wonder if we had found him earlier maybe we could have saved his life. At that moment a big gust of wind came and blew the parachute up dragging the man along with it and that’s when I saw it. The teeth, the big black eyes and the white cape. What the boys thought was the beast was actually just our dead pilot being pulled by his parachute. I’m excited to run down and tell the boys the good news that there’s no beast after all! Maybe things will go back to normal now and we can just work on getting rescued. I can hear the boys down at Jacks base by the lagoon. They are chanting something that sounds like “Kill the beast”. It’s starting to rain now so I better get going before you start getting wet diary. Cheerio!
Dear Simons Diary
It was dark. There was rain, thunder, fire. Jack had started the chant “Kill the beast, kill the beast, kill the beast.” So everyone joined in, even Sam and Eric, even Piggy and I. Simon was always so quiet that I didn’t know he was missing. I thought we were all accounted for. We were all dancing around the fire with our sharp sticks chanting and Jack got everyone pumped up to go and kill the beast. The thunder got louder and the rain got heavier. All of a sudden the beast bust through the bushes and onto the beach right in front of us. Well, we thought it was the beast. Without even getting a glimpse of the figure, all of the boys went running towards it with their sticks in the air and started stabbing. Everyone was in attack mode, it all happened so fast. The stabbing went on for at least 5 minutes until the boys knew there was no chance the beast could still be alive. They backed away and there floating in the water of the lagoon was one of our own, Simon, dead. How we were supposed to know that the beast running out of the bush was actually Simon? It doesn’t matter now anyway, we had murdered him. Within minutes Simon’s body was washed out to sea, never to be spoken of again. I’m sorry Simon, I can never forgive myself for this. But you have gotten the easy way out of getting off this island. May you rest in peace.
From Ralph
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