"Got 'er!" cried Ernie.
"Hot shot!" shouted Raymond.
Ernie turned to Peter who was standing small and white-faced and absolutely rigid. "Now go get 'er," he ordered.
Once again, Peter didn't move.
Ernie came up close to the smaller boy and bent down and stuck his face right up to Peter's. "I'm tellin' you for the last time," he said, soft and dangerous. "Go get 'er!"
Tears were running down Peter's face as he went slowly down the bank and entered the water. He waded out to the dead swan and picked it up tenderly with both hands. Underneath it were two tiny cygnets, their bodies covered with yellow down. They were huddling together in the centre of the nest.
"Any eggs?" Ernie shouted from the bank.
"No," Peter answered. "Nothing." There was a chance, he felt, that when the male swan returned, it would continue to feed the young ones on its own if they were left in the nest. He certainly did not want to leave them to the tender mercies of Ernie and Raymond.
Peter carried the dead swan back to the edge of the lake. He placed it on the ground. Then he stood up and faced the two others. His eyes, still wet with tears, were blazing with fury. "That was a filthy thing to do!" he shouted. "It was a stupid pointless act of vandalism! You're a couple of ignorant idiots! It's you who ought to be dead instead of the swan! You're not fit to be alive!"
He stood there, as tall as he could stand, splendid in his fury, facing the two taller boys and not caring any longer what they did to him.
Ernie didn't hit him this time. He seemed just a tiny bit taken aback at first by this outburst, but he quickly recovered. And now his loose lips formed themselves into a sly, wet smirk and his small close-together eyes began to glint in a most malicious manner. "So you like swans, is that right?" he asked softly.
"I like swans and I hate you!" Peter cried.
"And am I right in thinkin'," Ernie went on, still smirking, "am I absolutely right in thinkin' that you wished this old swan down 'ere were alive instead of dead?"
"That's a stupid question!" Peter shouted.
" 'Ee needs a clip over the ear-'ole," Raymond said.
"Wait," Ernie sa
id. "I'm doin' this exercise." He turned back to Peter. "So if I could make this swan come alive and go flyin' round the sky all over again, then you'd be 'appy. Right?"
"That's another stupid question!" Peter cried out. "Who d'you think you are?"
"I'll tell you 'oo I am," Ernie said. "I'm a magic man, that's 'oo I am. And just to make you 'appy and contented, I am about to do a magic trick that'll make this dead swan come alive and go flyin' all over the sky once again."
"Rubbish!" Peter said. "I'm going." He turned and started to walk away.
"Grab 'im!" Ernie said.
Raymond grabbed him.
"Leave me alone!" Peter cried out.
Raymond slapped him on the cheek, hard. "Now, now," he said. "Don't fight with auntie, not unless you want to get 'urt."
"Gimme your knife," Ernie said, holding out his hand. Raymond gave him his knife.
Ernie knelt down beside the dead swan and stretched out one of its enormous wings. "Watch this," he said.
"What's the big idea?" Raymond asked.
"Wait and see," Ernie said. And now, using the knife, he proceeded to sever the great white wing from the swan's body. There is a joint in the bone where the wing meets the side of the bird, and Ernie located this and slid the knife into the joint and cut through the tendon. The knife was very sharp and it cut well, and soon the wing came away all in one piece.
Ernie turned the swan over and severed the other wing.
"String," he said, holding out his hand to Raymond.