et the boys catch up with him, and again he spread the mocking
distance between them. He turned down an alley, and eluded the pack.

All the youngsters at the party, even the girls, had scampered out of
the house to watch the race. When Piggy vaulted the back-yard fence
into Miss Morgan's garden, he heard the pursuers half a block away. He
saw, a hundred feet distant, a bevy of girls standing on the sidewalk.
And he saw, too, as he came skipping down the lot, something that made
him fairly skim over the earth; his Heart's Desire, standing alone,
near the porch, in his path, under an apple-tree. The exhilaration of
the chase had made him forget his trouble. He was so surefooted in the
race that he forgot to be abashed for the moment and came bounding
down by the apple-tree. He was full of pride. When he stopped he
was the King of Boyville and every inch a king. The king--not
Piggy--should be blamed. It was all over in a second--almost before he
had stopped. He aimed at her cheek, but he got her ear. That was the
first that he knew of it. Piggy seemed to return to life then. In
his confusion he felt himself shrivelling up to his normal
size--shrivelling and frying. In an instant he was gone, and Piggy
Pennington ran into the group of girls on the sidewalk and let them
catch him and hold him. The breathless youths went into the house
telling their adventures in the race between gasps. But Piggy did not
dare to look at his Heart's Desire for as much as five minutes--a
long, long time. No one had seen him beneath the apple-tree. He was
not afraid of the teasing, but he was afraid of a withering look from
his Heart's Desire,--a look that he felt with a parching fear in his
throat would throw the universe into an eclipse for him. He observed
that she got up and changed her seat to be rid of Mealy Jones. At
first Piggy thought that was a good sign, but a moment later he
reasoned that the avoidance of Mealy was inspired probably by a
loathing for all boys. He dared not seek her eyes, but he mingled
noisily in the crowd for a while, and then, on a desperate venture,
carelessly snapped a peanut shell and hit his Heart's Desire on
the chin. He seemed to be looking a thousand miles away in another
direction than that which the missile took. He waited nearly a
minute--a long, uncertain minute--for a response.

Then the shell came back; it did not hit him--but it might have done
so--that was all he could ask. He snapped shells slyly