Ravens Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing less. He’d pay any price for it.
    OK.
    I’m ready then.
    But Romeo? What about Romeo?
    He turned and looked at Romeo asleep on the bed. Whimpering in his dreams like a wounded dog.
    Tara, the moment she shut her car door, heard a whoop from inside the bungalow and cats meowing in concert, and then Nell came
     out to the front porch to greet her. “Well hello,
ba
-by!” Her voice was hoarse, crackerish, high. She had a powerful embrace. She held Tara and they rocked back and forth. Tara
     always thought her grandmother’s hair smelled like popcorn.
    Nell dragged her into the kitchen to show off her new toy: a singing buck’s head. It had a six-point rack and it sang “Killing
     Me Softly with His Song.” It kept rolling its eyes toward a trophy fish on the opposite wall — which sang back, “Hook, Line
     and Sinker.” Nell cackled wildly.
    Then she and Tara sat at the kitchen table and ate crabcakes and drank Yellowtail shiraz. The cats writhed at their feet.
     Tara thought of the jackpot, and waves of bliss washed over her.
    She asked Nell how school had gone today. Nell was sixty-two and semi-retired, but she still taught a summer school program
     called Great Expectations, for kids who had no expectations at all. Nell said, “Well, Jeremiah tells me he’s been suspended.
     I say, ‘Why, Jeremiah?’ He says, ‘ ’Cause I
rose up
against Mr. Briggs.’ I mean, he’s but thirteen years old, but he’s about as big as Mr. Briggs already. Twice my size. I taught
     his father. I taught his
grandfather
. Both of ’em hooligans, and Jeremiah’s a hooligan too. I say, ‘Jeremiah, you better not rise up against
me
.’ He says, ‘I ain’t never gonna rise up against
you
, Miz Boatwright. I’m
scared
a you.’ ”
    She howled with pleasure.
    They finished their crabcakes and cleaned the table; and then played pot-limit seven stud —their custom on Thursday afternoons.
    They each had private sacks filled with coins and currency of various countries. The Romanian ten-
bani
coin was worth a quarter. That old Chinese coin with the hole in the middle was valued at fifty cents. An ersatz Confederate
     dollar was worth a dime. But the game wasn’t all whimsy: if Nell wanted to bully you, she’d throw down legal tender — a five
     or a ten or even a twenty — and you’d better stand up to her. You were permitted to fold from prudence but never timorousness.
     If she caught you shrinking from a fight, she’d turn surly, withering; she’d send you home early.
    But so long as you fought back you couldn’t lose. Even if Tara dropped sixty or a hundred dollars in a single evening, it
     would all be returned to her. When she opened her next tuition bill, she’d find it magically marked PAID; and next time she
     came to Nell’s she’d find her sack was brimful again, with new and ever odder coins.
    This afternoon, Grandmother had a rampage of good fortune. Tara was dealt a straight, but Nell topped it with a full house.
     Tara picked up a set, but Nell beat it with another boat. Just one of those days. Nell was giddy. She tsked, “Poor poor unlucky
     child.”
    When she dealt, the cards flew from her fingers.
    The cat called Horace Jackal jumped up on the table, and she swept him off with an outstretched arm, without looking. She
     shouted at Tara. “Bet! It’s your turn! Bet or get out!”
    In one hand, all four of Nell’s up-cards were hearts. After she took the pot, she showed her hole cards:
all
hearts. Seven of them. “Blood everywhere!” She was already tipsy. “Reminds me of my prom night.”
    “What happened on your prom night, Grandmother dear?”
    Nell shuffled and said, “Oh, well, my date and I, we went to his car to make out? And I was so drunk, and it was so dark in
     his backseat, I didn’t realize my period had started.”
    “Oh my God.”
    “Oh my God is right. We open the door and the light comes on, and it was like the Manson family had been in there. It was
     like