The Wild Ones Read Online Free PDF

what
shoulding
could possibly be, but Flynn talked right over his thinking. “We’ll put down one nut to four seeds, how about that? You won’t find more generous terms in any alley this side of the Slivered Sky. Now, how do those odds sound?”
    â€œUh . . .” Kit fidgeted nervously. “I don’t know what you’re saying, really. It is pretty odd.”
    â€œWell put, young lad!” Flynn patted him on the back, laughing. “Well put! We’ve given you odd odds and odd words. What good are words, when the odds are so odd, am I right? Actions speak! Begin, brother. Young Kit here has no use of odd words. But of the odds, he has our word!”
    â€œI . . . what?” Kit was bewildered, but Shane picked up a small nut in his delicate black claw and placed it on a scrap of old cardboard laid across two empty red cans from a toss-away fizzy drink. He laid out three walnut shells and then put the nut beneath one. Then his hands slid and slipped around the table, mixing up the shells.
    As Shane’s paws moved, Flynn talked, and Flynn’s talk was more like a song. He sang:
    It’s a simpl
e game of ifs and bu
ts,
of shells and n
uts.
    You pick a shel
l, you try your luck
.
    Select a shell, th
e one you choose.
    If
right, you win, if
wrong, you lose.
    Shane’s hands sped up; the shells moved faster and faster. Kit thought he knew where the nut was one second; the next he started to doubt. His eyes couldn’t keep up with the moving paws, but his ears perked. Even with all the racket of Ankle Snap Alley, he could hear a smallknocking sound. It was the sound of the nut knocking against the side of the shell. If he could follow that sound, he could find the nut. That was why Flynn sang . . . to distract the ears of the players!
    The luck itself
, it comes from you
    or from Azban, if saints be tru
e.
    The eye won’t lie
, or will it, so?
    Yo
u find the nut, and
then you’ll know!
    Kit did his best to ignore the song and listened for the sound of the nut.
    Shane stopped moving the shells and lifted his hands away with open palms. As he stopped, Kit’s keen ears picked up the sound of the nut under the farthest shell. It wasn’t where he’d thought it would be, but he trusted his ears far more than his eyes.
    â€œIt’s there!” He pointed triumphantly. “It’s under that shell.”
    â€œYou’re certain?” Flynn asked him.
    Kit nodded to Flynn and Flynn nodded to Shane and Shane tipped the shell back to reveal the nut exactly where Kit had said it would be.
    â€œWinner, winner, nuts for dinner!” Shane called out and Kit felt a rush of excitement. A crowd around him cheered. He hadn’t even noticed a crowd gather.
    â€œNicely done, pal o’ me paw,” said Flynn. “You’ve a knack for the game, like all of our kind. He rolled a nut toward Kit, then stopped it with the tip of one claw just as Kit reached out for it. “What say you give a friend, a cousin like meself, a chance to win it back?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Kit, who thought it best to quit while he was ahead. He’d wagered four seeds and won a hazelnut, which was worth a lot more than four seeds. It’d be best if he went to find his uncle now, got back to the task at hand. He hadn’t come all this way to play gambling games. He’d come for a purpose. He just needed to get his piece of bark back.
    â€œI’ll give you double odds,” Flynn proposed. “Triple odds on top of that. Win you five nuts for the price of one, you could.”
    Shane gasped.
    â€œSee that?” Flynn said. “My brother don’t want me to bet so, but the night is young and so are you, Kit. Let’s keep up the game! It’s all good fun, right?”
    The crowd leaned in, waiting for Kit’s answer. The busy moles had stopped being busy and crowded in behind Kit to see the Blacktail