Raymond, who was grasping Peter by the arm, was watching fascinated. "Where'd you learn 'ow to butcher up a bird like that?" he asked.
"With chickens," Ernie said. "We used to nick chickens from up at Stevens Farm and cut 'em up into chicken parts and flog 'em to a shop in Aylesbury. Gimme the string."
Raymond gave him the ball of string. Ernie cut off six pieces, each about a yard long.
There are a series of strong bones running along the top edge of a swan's wing, and Ernie took one of the wings and started tying one end of the bits of string all the way along the top edge of the great wing. When he had done this, he lifted the wing with the six string-ends dangling from it and said to Peter, "Stick out your arm."
"You're absolutely mad!" the smaller boy shouted. "You're demented!"
"Make 'im stick it out," Ernie said to Raymond.
Raymond held up a clenched fist in front of Peter's face and dabbed it gently against his nose. "You see this," he said. "Well I'm goin' to smash you right in the kisser with it unless you do exactly as you're told, see? Now, stick out your arm, there's a good little boy."
Peter felt his resistance collapsing. He couldn't hold out against these people any longer. For a few seconds, he stared at Ernie. Ernie with the tiny close-together black eyes gave the impression he would be capable of doing just about anything if he got really angry. Ernie, Peter felt at that moment, might quite easily kill a person if he were to lose his temper. Ernie, the dangerous backward child, was playing games now and it would be very unwise to spoil his fun. Peter held out an arm.
Ernie then proceeded to tie the six string ends one by one to Peter's arm, and when he had finished, the white wing of the swan was securely attached along the entire length of the arm itself.
"Ow's that, eh?" Ernie said, stepping back and surveying his work.
"Now the other one," Raymond said, catching on to what Ernie was doing. "You can't expect 'im to go flyin' round the sky with only one wing, can you?"
"Second wing comin' up," Ernie said. He knelt down again and tied six more lengths of string to the top bones of the second wing. Then he stood up again. "Let's 'ave the other arm," he said. Peter, feeling sick and ridiculous, held out his other arm. Ernie strapped the wing tightly along the length of it.
"Now!" Ernie cried, clapping his hands and dancing a little jig on the grass. "Now we got ourselves a real live swan all over again! Didn't I tell you I was a magic man ? Didn't I tell you I was goin' to do a magic trick and make this dead swan come alive and go flyin' all over the sky? Didn't I tell you that?"
Peter stood there in the sunshine beside the lake on this beautiful May morning, the enormous, limp and slightly bloodied wings dangling grotesquely at his sides. "Have you finished?" he said.
"Swans don't talk," Ernie said. "Keep your flippin' beak shut! And save your energy, laddie, because you're goin' to need all the strength and energy you got when it comes to flyin' round in the sky." Ernie picked up his gun from the ground, then he grabbed Peter by the back of the neck with his free hand and said, "March!"
They marched along the bank of the lake until they came to a tall and graceful willow tree. There they halted. The tree was a weeping willow, and the long branches hung down from a great height and almost touched the surface of the lake.
"And now the magic swan is goin' to show us a bit of magic flyin'," Ernie announced. "So what you're goin' to do, Mister Swan, is to climb up to the very top of this tree, and when you get there you're goin' to spread out your wings like a clever little swannee-swan-swan and you're goin' to take off!"
"Fantastic!" cried Raymond. "Terrific! I like it very much!"
"So do I," Ernie said. "Because now we're goin' to find out just exactly 'ow clever this clever little swannee-swan-swan really is. He's terribly clever at school, we all know that, and 'ee's top of the class and everything else that's lovely, but let's see just exactly 'ow clever 'ee is when 'ee's at the top of the tree! Right, Mister Swan?" He gave Peter a push towards the tree.
How much further could this madness go? Peter wondered. He was beginning to feel a little mad himself, as though nothing was real any more and none of it was actually happening. But the thought of being high up in the tree and out of reach of these hooligans at last was something that appealed to him greatly. When he was up there, he could stay up there. He doubted very much if they would bother to come up after him. And even if they did, he could surely climb away from them along a thin limb that would not take the weight of two people.
The tree was a fairly easy one to climb, with several low branches to give him a start up. He began climbing. The huge white wings dangling from his arms kept getting in the way, but it didn't matter. What mattered now to Peter was that every inch upward was another inch away from his tormentors below. He had never been a great one for tree-climbing and he wasn't especially good at it, but nothing in the world was going to stop him from getting to the top of this one. And once he was there, he thought it unlikely they would even be able to see him because of the leaves.
"Higher!" shouted Ernie's voice. "Keep goin'!"
Peter kept going, and eventually he arrived at a point where it was impossible to go higher. His feet were now standing on a branch that was about as thick as a person's wrist, and this particular branch reached far out over the lake and then curved gracefully downward. All the branches above him were very thin and whippy, but the one he was holding on to with his hands was quite strong enough for the purpose. He stood there, resting after the climb. He looked down for the first time. He was very high up, at least fifty feet. But he couldn't see the two boys. They were no longer standing at the base of the tree. Was it possible they had gone away at last?
"All right, Mister Swan!" came the dreaded voice of Ernie. "Now listen carefully!"
The two of them had walked some distance away from the tree to a point where they had a clear view of the small boy at the top. Looking down at them now, Peter realized how very sparse and slender the leaves of a willow tree were. They gave him almost no cover at all.
"Listen carefully. Mister Swan!" the voice was shouting. "Start walking out along that branch you're standin' on! Keep goin' till you're right over the nice muddy water! Then you take off!"
Peter didn't move. He was fifty feet above them now and they weren't ever going to reach him again. From down below, there was a long silence. It lasted maybe half a minute. He kept his eyes on the two distant figures in the field. They were standing quite still, lookin
g up at him.
"All right then, Mister Swan!" came Ernie's voice again. "I'm gonna count to ten, right? And if you ain't spread them wings and flown away by then, I'm gonna shoot you down instead with this little gun! And that'll make two swans I've knocked off today instead of one! So here we go, Mister Swan! One!. . . Two!. . . Three!. . . Four!. . . Five!. . . Six!. . ."
Peter remained still. Nothing would make him move from now on.