Crystal Read Online Free PDF Page B

light had gone! Raek had disappeared.
    ‘Raek! Raek!’
    Behind her all was darkness. Or was there something darker, blacker, coming along the walkway? It had to be Raek – who else could it be? His lantern had burned out. He’d got scared, or lonely … It had to be Raek. But she knew it wasn’t.
    The planks were shuddering. Something was thudding on the walkway. The wood was pulsing! The footsteps were getting stronger and heavier. Thumping. Something was thumping along towards her. Something much heavier than Raek …
    She could hear the sound of feet, or was it paws? Bedum, bedum , they were drumming on the wood. Click click , something scratched the wood. Swoosh, whoosh , something heavy brushed over the planks.
    Crystal looked quickly over her shoulder. Just a glimpse was enough. It was a skweener! Its head was down low, wings held close to its side, long tail thrashing from side to side. Its eyes gleamed red. A terrible low, skweening cry burst from its open jaws.
    Crystal screamed. And ran. ‘Help!’
    The walkway swayed from side to side, the lantern spluttered.
    Her worst nightmare – a skweener!
    ‘Help!’
    The creature was almost upon her when she felt leaves brush her face – the tree! She dropped the lantern and somehow it landed upright. The flame flickered then steadied. She was up the tree in an instant, hooking her legs over a branch and pulling herself up.
    The skweener thundered into the light. She could see the whites of its eyes, the curl of its yellow nostrils, scales glinting on its sinewy neck. It was so close below her she could smell its breath, ashy and hot and stinking of rotten meat.
    It lumbered past, then hesitated …
    ‘Skweeeen!’
    It couldn’t see her. But it could smell her.
    It lifted its snout and sniffed the air, pinpointed where she was and tried to spin round to head back. But the planks were as slippery as ice. The skweener’s feet slithered as it turned, claws ripping at the wood, and it crashed against the rail. The rail snapped like a matchstick and the skweener tumbled into the swamp. Splat! like a giant wooden spoon hitting batter.
    ‘Skweeeeen! Skweeeeen!’
    The scream was terrible; it chilled Crystal to the centre of her being and made her hair stand on end. Shivering, she clung more tightly to her tree.
    The skweener was stuck. It began thrashing against the mud, beating its wings and swirling its tail round in a desperate attempt to get free. The more it struggled and writhed, the deeper into the swamp it sank. It was a horrible thing to witness. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she told it while she squeezed her eyes shut and blocked off her ears. ‘Sorry.’
    A cold sweat covered her body. She was sobbing silently, trying not to see, trying not to hear. She felt her grasp weakening and knew she’d fall at any moment. She stayed on the branch as long as she could, then finally her fingers lost their hold and she slithered down. Her legs collapsed and she crumpled in a heap on the walkway, weeping.
    The skweener was barely moving now. It was covered in mud; even its gleaming eyes were blacked out. It was doomed.
    At last it was quiet – except for a few bubbles slowly erupting on the slimy surface.
    She opened her eyes and stared at the mud where she thought she could still see the shape of the dead skweener. That could so easily have been me, she thought.

6
The Acorn Holder
    Questrid stared at his drawing in the design book:

    It was an acorn – a little smaller than a chicken’s egg – sitting in its knobbly cup. He had made it from a solid chunk of green marble. One end of the marble had flecks of darker green and brown in it and he had used that to form the eggcup. The other part of the marble had lines in it like wood grain, which had been perfect for the acorn itself. The acorn nut unscrewed from the cup base and both were hollow so that something could be hidden inside it, something like a slip of curled-up paper, or a trinket.
    Questrid had finished carving