A Sort of Static

It's been a while now. Days. Weeks even. Not a single ship, not a single plane. It's like we're invisible to the rest of the world. Ralph tries to get things done, though. There's always a fire on top of the mountain-- smaller now, thank goodness. Ralph says the smoke's too thin, though, and he's right. We made shelters-- well, mostly Ralph and Simon did. The others ran off. They have such short attention spans, it's amazing they find the time to feed themselves.
     Jack's been spending more and more time in the jungle with his "hunters"-- fools, that's what they are, if you ask me. They haven't caught anything yet, either, so I don't see the point of them. I'm not sure how long we can go on like this, though. Jack and Ralph...there's a sort of static between them. Sometimes I think they could get along just fine, and other times it's like they'd like to rip each other's throats out. And Jack seems different from when he arrived. It's not just the physical aspects, either. (Everyone's sunburned now, and their hair has all grown, except mine.) It's weird, though. Jack seems sort of...detached. There's a wildness about him that wasn't there before, a sort of animal look that comes into his eyes when he talks about pigs-- which is all he ever does! We hardly ever see some of the biguns anymore (that's what we're calling them now- biguns and littleuns). Simon hangs around though. He's a queer fellow, a little batty, maybe, but nice enough. Every night the littleuns return to the shelters and we all sleep. I hear them, though, in the night-- crying and tossing, whimpering for their mothers and shivering in terror of the beast. I don't think there is a beast, though-- there can't be. It's a tiny island-- surely we would have come across some trace of a beast? They're just not being rational...but sometimes I have dreams, too. Dreams of their dreams, and dreams of that littleun with the mulberry birthmark-- we never did see him again.
     I try not to think about it too much, though. I'm trying to think of useful things to do. I had an idea this morning about making sundials, so we could tell the time. I think it'll work, but haven't pitched it to Ralph yet. He's swimming around in the pool now-- I'd better go talk to him. I'll keep you posted.