Chapter Six - Beast from Air

I was woken by the twins. It was early morning, just before the sun would rise. They had rushed into our tent and had tried to explain what they had seen but it was hard to follow as they took their turns speaking. They told us that they had gone up to the mountain to check the fire. They had put a bit extra wood in and they had seen the beast. It was on the mountain. At first I thought they were just playing around but then I heard it. It was a billowing sound from up he mountain. We waited in terror for the morning and when it came, I told the twins to call an assembly. I let them describe what they had seen to the others. Jack wanted to hunt it with the spindly little wooden spears that he made. It was a stupid idea, we had no idea how big it was, how strong it was, how fast it was. We knew nothing. Piggy voted that we all stay on the beach in the relative safety it held, which was also a ludicrous idea. How were we supposed to get food, what would happen to the fire and we would always have to be on the look out for the beast. I told Piggy that he would stay on the beach to look after the littluns, which he didn't seem to mind, though he did ask a reasonable question. What happens if the beast comes when they're gone hunting. What would he do if he got scared. At that point Jack broke in and told Piggy that he was always scared.Piggy tried to reason with him, said that he didn't have the conch. Jack then basically said that the conch was stupid and useless, which is completely wrong. The conch is all we have, it represents order and civilisation. If we didn't have the conch we would all turn into savages. All Jack wants to do is run off into the woods and hunt and kill. Doesn't anyone want to be rescued? And with the fire being on the mountain, and probably out by now, there is no chance of ever getting home. The fire is our only hope, if that burns out, were done for. At the end of the assembly we decided that we would check the one place Jack hadn't been, Castle Rock, and if we found nothing, then we would go to the mountain and relight the fire. When we set off, I let Jack lead the way. I'm quite tired of always being in charge. The responsibility of thinking for everyone is overwhelming and tiresome. The weight of all these boy's lives have been on my shoulders since the beginning, and it is a heavy burden. When we arrived at Castle Rock I made the others wait for me in the tall grass as I went to investigate the area. Before I got too far, Jack came up beside me. We explored the area and sat. He thought it would make a perfect place for a fort, which was completely unnecessary to our survival. Plus, there was no fresh water nearby nor any food. We were now at the top of the castle. The others saw us and came running up the path to where we were. I turned around for one minute and they all started pushing huge rocks into the ocean. What a wast of time! We should be walking back to the mountain to relight the fire, not wasting our time and energy! I yelled at them to stop it and reminded them of the fire and rescue. Still most of them wanted to stay and roll more rocks. I was getting really frustrated. Did they not want to go home, see their parents again? They were acting like little kids! They wanted to build a fort, for goodness sake. It took a lot of yelling and shouting but, eventually, they all followed Jack to the mountain, though they were obviously not happy about it.