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Jack dived into the forest, away from the eyes of all the boys watching him, away from the last remainders of British life he had, and far, far away from Ralph. The redness in his cheeks slowly cleared away as he grabbed a sudden hold on a nearby tree, leaning against it and catching his breath. The foliage around him stayed beautiful as always. It seemed no matter what happened between the boys, the flowers would keep on blooming and the birds would keep on singing as if they taunted their failures. What had he messed up this time? The hunters, his choir, chose the unfamiliar, obnoxious, fair haired Ralph over their head boy— not once, but twice— as a chief. Not a single person raised their hand. Even with no adults in the way, Merridew would never be in power.
Jack’s eyes drifted down to the floor of the jungle and locked onto a blurry black shape. He hurriedly rubbed his eyes dry, leaving no sign of the tears that had been there a moment before, and refocused his sight. On the grass laid a small pile of choir caps. Long ago, those caps were worn by proper British boys in a proper church choir, a choir where Jack felt respected. But even then he always fell short to the choir master. Memories of his last true practice with the choir, before the bombs and before the island, seeped back into his brain as he tried to ground himself against the bark of the nearby tree. Jack couldn’t fight off his memories forever.
Staring down at those black caps brought him back to the times he stood behind Henry Walsh, youngest littlun in the choir, keeping his eyes locked away from anything in the church other than the conducting wand. On a good practice day, the boys would cycle through their songs for the solid two hours and get home before supper. Their final practice wasn’t a good one.
As the group sang through the last song of the night— their pieces all blended together after so long, the name had faded away— the choir master watched them all meticulously. He hadn’t cut them off yet. The sound of their voices flowed through the cathedral heavenly, mixing with the organ accompaniment behind them to make a melody worthy enough to be performed in this church. Most of their songs did after the training the choir master put them through. However, during the final chorus, the high note that the rest of the choir feared every time approached, the high C. Merridew had nothing to worry about, everyone he had ever met was aware he could sing C sharp.
Yet a jarring note came from the right end of the back row and the choir master brought his hands down in an instant. He stared into the concealed eyes of Simon Cambourne, who stared down at his shoes awaiting his punishment as he always did.
“Cambourne,” the choir master began, “you were flat again, two semitones. I don’t want to repeat myself a third time this week.” He reached for his favorite meter stick as he approached, and Merridew risked a glance at his neighbor, Maurice Hall. He struggled to hold in his laughter like he did any time Cambourne messed up. Merridew looked between them unamused. The choir master raised the stick up to the boy in front of him, his arms folded over his face, and struck it down on the back of his head. He let out a squeak as he reached for where he’d been hit, which made Maurice Hall unable to contain a small giggle. He should’ve been grateful the choir master had been too caught up in a coughing fit to notice, but he didn’t stop there.
“Did you hear him?” Hall leaned over to Merridew and made an exaggerated replication of the noise, which managed to get a small laugh out of him. The second the head boy broke his perfect behavior, though, the choir master whipped his head back around.
“Hall, no more of your funny business! Merridew, you’re supposed to be setting the example here.” He advanced towards the other end of the line with the punishment in hand. “I do not condone this behavior in my choir from you,” he said, looking directly at Merridew. He lashed out on Hall first, as he did almost every week. But Merridew hadn’t been faced with the choir master’s meter stick for two years. Over an immature mistake from Cambourne of all people, this accomplished streak of good was officially broken.
He fought every instinct in his body to fight back, with his words or with his hands, and kept his chin up as the stick struck down at the very top of his skull. The throbbing pain wasn’t anything unique to Merridew, but the shame flooded into his cheeks and he had to look at the floor to avoid the eyes of everyone, surely watching him. Staring down at his feet, shaking, he was behaving like Cambourne. Soon enough they’d be calling him batty if he didn’t pull it together.
The choir master made the group restart the song even if the bells chimed six the moment before. He could hold them here as long as he wanted, he was choir master. He could hit them with sticks and shame them because he had the power here. Not the head boy, who was only a boy at the end of the day.
Seven minutes past six, the choir master released them from the practice. Him and the accompanist left as soon as possible to leave the world of young choir boys behind. The others lingered behind to chat. Merridew wasn’t done with them yet, though, he had to get a grasp on his standing after his recent humiliation. He picked out the easiest target and approached Cambourne.
“Stop trying to hit the C and leave it for the real treble singers. You ought to’ve just stayed with the altos—”
“Oh, shut up, Merridew, we all know you can hit it!” Merridew peered through the crowd to find the voice came from one of the newest boys in the choir, Wilfred Turner, who looked about nine. His tone of voice may have been seen as confidence, but to Merridew, it was nothing but stupidity.
“I’m head boy, I’ll make sure you all act correctly, and you don’t speak to me like that.”
“I can talk to you how I like! You’re not the choir master!” Turner stuck his tongue out at Merridew. Those words struck deep into his soul, this immature boy treating him like an equal. He shook, but not in the shameful way he did in the practice, and made his way to the wall with the meter stick leaning against it.
Turner made the wrong choice standing so close that he didn’t get a chance to react before Merridew grabbed the stick and amateurly smacked him above the ear.
The young boy looked at him with watery eyes, slowly creating distance between himself and the meter stick. Everyone else who still remained in the church had their eyes on Merridew again. Hall didn’t laugh this time. After a long moment of silence, he built up the courage to defend their newest member.
“...Okay, Jack, you didn’t have to—”
“It’s Merridew!” He aimed the meter stick in the direction of Hall, the end not many centimeters away from his face. They both knew Merridew wouldn’t cross that line. Hall gave him a disapproving look before turning out to the doors. The rest of the choir followed his lead, collecting their belongings from the benches and leaving. Merridew placed the stick back where it had rested a minute before.
The look he’d seen in Turner’s eyes, in Hall’s eyes, in all of the boys in that room, it should’ve made any normal boy feel ashamed for a mistake like that. But the fear that echoed off of the walls and back to Merridew almost worked enough to wipe the weakness the choir master had given him. Holding the stick, he almost felt equal to the choir master himself, above the rest of the choir, above everyone—
“Jack?” A voice shattered the memories that Merridew had lost himself in. He hastily pushed off of the grass below, unsure of how he ended up against it in the first place. A rustle came from the vines to his left, then a pair of footsteps, and finally, Maurice Hall revealed himself in the clearing.
“Jack! I thought you ought’ve gone further by now,” he said, catching his breath. Jack tried to get a read on what Maurice would be hunting him down like this for.
“Tell Ralph I’m not coming back. I told him, I’m done with his rules, I told you all—”
“I’m coming with you.” Maurice glanced down at the choir caps in their abandoned pile. “We could wear those again, I bet Roger’ll come too. Then we’d have our own group.”
“You didn’t raise your hand.”
“Huh?”
“You wanted Ralph as chief,” Jack said, “didn’t you?” Recollections of that meeting tried to rise back up, but he kept his focus on the boy in front of him. Maurice shifted on his feet, awkward, unsure how to defend himself.
“I thought about it. And you’re head boy and all. I didn’t want to separate, but now you went off anyways, alone, y’know…” Kneeling down on the dirt, he grabbed one of the choir caps. “This one ought to be Wilfred’s. With the tear on the side.” He didn’t dare to speak any more of their last choir practice. On the island, those things slipped out of their minds until they were harshly reminded of the proper boys they used to be. But Merridew, the proper boy, never got his power.
“This one’s yours! With the gold badge!” Maurice reached up and waved it in Jack’s face until he begrudgingly took it upon his head. Now both of them wore the caps that moths had certainly taken a liking to. If Maurice was being truthful, if he really was here to stay, and if the other choir boys followed behind as he promised, maybe his gold badge would mean something again. Jack Merridew didn’t have a conch, or a meter stick, but he had a true chance at control for the first time in his life because of this island.