Raven Summer Read Online Free PDF

says one of them, Nancy Sloane. “It’s horrible. It’s cruel.”
    But it just entices me. I shrug and smile and step past them.
    There’s a little cluster of kids there.
    “Let Liam through,” says Nattrass.
    I sidle through. I look down with the others. The pit’s three feet deep now. There are three adders in it, two of them curled up dead still, the other slithering, squirming. It tries to raise its head towards the pit edge but it could never reach. Nattrass laughs and knocks it back with a stick. There’s a couple of mice in there as well, hunched together in a corner, petrified.
    “They’re savage little buggers, Liam,” he says. “Mebbe they’re magic to townies like you, but they bite farmers. They bite dogs. They bite ramblers. They bite little bairns playing in the fields. And they’re ten times worse in hot years like this. So I been out catching them. Better that they’re here in my pit than out there being wild and doing harm.”
    He pokes the squirming snake again. It bares its fangs. Nattrass licks his lips and spits.
    “See what I mean, brother?” he said. “It’d bite you as soon as look at you.”
    I pick up a fallen twig from the grass. I touch one of the snakes. It squirms, turns, bares its fangs. I touch it again. It bites. I feel the vibrations through the twig.
    Nattrass grins.
    “That’s right, Liam,” he says. “Get them angry.”
    He looks around the faces.
    “So,” he says, “who’s going first?”
    He’s got a plank, six inches wide. He drops it across the middle of the pit.
    There’s laughter, intakes of breath, muttered curses. A couple of kids head off home straightaway.
    “Aye. Shove off if you like,” says Nattrass. “But remember, not a word. Otherwise …” He laughs. “Chickens!”
    “I’ll do it,” says Eddie.
    “I know
you
would,” says Nattrass. “But what about you, Liam, eh?” His eyes widen as he approaches. I clench my fists, get ready for him. But he just punches me gently in the ribs.
    “Just joking, man. I wouldn’t ask nobody to do something I wouldn’t do myself.”
    He steps onto the plank and walks straight across without a care in the world. He does it again. Stands in the middle and bounces. Pretends he’s falling, then steps across the three-foot gap from the plank to safety. We all do it. It’s easy. We shudder and gasp and we’re scared we’ll fall, but it’s easy. We pause. We watch as the squirming snake suddenly opens its jaws and stabs at one of the mice. The mouse shudders, wriggles, lies panting for a few moments, then it’s still. The other mouse squeaks, squeaks, squeaks. The snake bites that one, too, and it shudders on the earth and is still. Nattrass sighs, laughs. Another snake starts to move. The two snakes raise their heads six inches from the earth. We crouch at the rim of the pit and watch.
    “Go on, my beauties!” murmurs Nattrass. “Go on!”
    The snakes eye each other, then dart for each other. They writhe together, then separate and lie at opposite ends of the pit. The third snake moves, slithers around the pit.
    We all watch, mesmerized.
    “Time for episode two,” says Nattrass. “Too easy, that time. Wasn’t it?”
    He holds up a black scarf.
    “This’ll add a bit of spice,” he says.
    He starts wrapping the scarf over his eyes. A few more kids head off home. Again, he does it first. Steps onto the plank, feels his way forward. All the snakes start slithering below him. He moves slowly. Short step, then balance, then short step again. He reaches the other side, pulls the scarf away, makes a fist, grins.
    He dangles the scarf in the air.
    “Next?”
    Eddie does it, then another lad, Rod Hughes, then Ned. Then me. The blackness and the image of the snakes beneath are awful and the crossing is dreadful, terrifying. But it’s still easy. You just concentrate: one foot in front of the other, arms out wide, balance, next foot. The worst bit’s in the middle where the plank sags under your