Raven Summer

by David Almond

  He pauses. He repeats the words: Hin-er-ee! Hin-er-ee!

  “I am Henry Meadows,” he repeats. “I have told nobody these things since I began my journey.”

  He places the whole book on the fire and watches as it burns.

  “My father, Joseph, was a good man. He was an optimistic man. All through his life there had been war after war after war, but he said that the world would surely change. He said that in some parts of the world all war was over and would never come again. In such places, man had seen the foolishness of his ways. He said that boys like me would find a place in this world. He said that I must see myself as a person in the world, not just a person in this village, in this country, Liberia. He said that when I had grown, I must travel. I must go to Europe, to America. Then perhaps I could come back to my homeland as an educated man, and help to make my homeland a great land. He used to laugh as he said these things to me. Listen to me, Joseph Meadows, a man with nothing, saying these words in this poor little place, to this poor little half-naked boy. But I am right, Henry. You must learn, you must grow, you must dream, and you must leave. And he would kiss me, and say that one day there would be a kiss to send me off for a long time. In the meantime, you must work, you must pick stones, and you must go to school.”

  He looks across the flames at me.

  “Perhaps it will always be so,” he says. “That fathers wish their children to live their lives for them. Is it so, Liam?”

  I think of Dad: Live like you’re in a story, Liam. Live an adventure.

  “Yes,” I say. “It is true.”

  “School was a row of benches, a blue cotton canopy, children sitting in rows a few hours each week. We scratched words on slates with sticks. Those of us without slates and sticks leaned over and wrote with our fingers in the dust. We chanted numbers and alphabets and patriotic songs. We listened to stories about our people and about the strange animals that lived around us. The teacher held up a picture of a cow and we called out ‘Cow’ and we wrote cow. A picture of a snake and we said ‘Snake’ and wrote down snake. He told us that Liberia meant ‘the land of the free.’ He told us it was our duty to work hard and to build a great nation of the free. He had a box in which there were faded books from long ago. When we worked hard he showed them to us. I remember how they crackled as he opened them. And I remember the pictures: New York, Californian beaches, London, Buckingham Palace, the fields of Kent, Salisbury Cathedral. These were my pictures of a world without war, and it was a world that was very beautiful to me.”

  The distant explosions continue. There are flashes and flares. Then pinpoints of light moving through the darkness to the north.

  “I was not in the long grass when the soldiers came,” he says. “I was in school. I was eight years old. It was hot. It was late afternoon. We were chanting numbers. Two add two is four, four add four is eight, eight add eight is sixteen. Just as you must have done in your school, Liam. Am I correct?”

  “Yes,” I say, and for a moment the chanting from my infant class comes back to me.

  “We heard the guns,” he says. “The pop-pop-pop of guns, as if from far away. Somehow they seemed not loud enough, not savage enough for guns. But there they were, and very close. We stared at each other, and at the teacher. What is it, Teacher? What is happening? What is that screaming? We said the words in innocence, but each of us knew that we had always waited for this day, when the guns and death would come to visit our little ordinary village. The popping came again, much more of it. Smoke began to rise above the far side of the village. The teacher told us to run, to hide, but too late. The soldiers were already here, in the school itself, with their guns and hatchets raised, telling us to keep silent, to sit on our benches and keep still. And there they were walking through the spaces between our homes. They fired into open doorways, they set fire to our homes with blazing torches. They looked so calm. It appeared to be so ordinary. How can I tell you about what they did to those whose lives I had shared? You would only ask, But how could they do such things, Henry? Or Oliver. Or whatever your name is.”

  He reaches forward and prods the burning book with a stick, making sure that each of its pages burns.

  “They took your family?” I say.

  “Yes, they did. As I told you. But I was not in the long grass. I was in school. And they were slaughtered, simply and calmly, like so many others were that day.”

  “But why?”

  “Why? There should be a reason, yes? And it is disgusting, no? It is beyond belief. But it is not beyond belief. It happens every hour, every day. It happens as we sit here together by our fire tonight. How could people do such things? Oh, I would learn how they could do it, soon enough. I would soon learn how simple it is.”

  He pauses again. He narrows his eyes and looks towards the head of the valley. I turn to look where he looks. I listen.

  “What is it?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know. Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  We all watch and listen together. Then Oliver continues.

  “Then all of them gathered at the school, and they laughed to see us there, so young, so innocent, so terrified. And our teacher told them they must go away now! He told them we were only children! And we sat on our benches and watched as they took him with a single shot.”

  He pauses. He looks down and waits. A voice comes from the darkness.

  “Spotlight!”

  And a beam of powerful light shines upon us.

  18

  They come through the trees. The torchlight glares on us. Nattrass holds the camera to his eye. Eddie and Ned walk at his side.

  “Spotlight!” Nattrass calls again. “Spotlight spotted you in the night! You’re out!”

  He giggles.

  “Oh, you do like your fireside chats, don’t you?” he says.

  “Go away, Nattrass,” I sigh.

  “But we’re making a documentary, brother. Everyday Life in a Northumbrian Village. And who’d expect this to be going on?”

  Eddie’s carrying a jagged stone in his hand. A claw hammer hangs from Ned’s belt.

  “Here we are in the realm of the reivers and the raiders and ancient wars,” says Nattrass. “Ghosts all around us. Blood in the soil. Out here, the savage past is with us still.” He laughs. “I’m good, aren’t I, brother? And I’m getting better. All this art stuff’s great. And you know, it’s all thanks to you. I’d never have seen the possibilities if you and your family weren’t in town.”

  He points the camera into Oliver’s face.

  “A few words for the viewers?” he says softly. “Don’t be shy. What do you think of English country life so far, Mr. Whatdeyecallit?”

  “My name is Henry,” says Henry. “English country life is very good.”

  “Wonderful! Beautifully put! That’s so good to know. And you, miss. You look like—how shall I put it?” He sniggers. “Let’s say like you’ve seen a bit of life. So how does being in this lovely place compare with where you’ve been?”

  “Piss off,” she says.

  “Oh no. Another one for the editing, lads. Never mind. The pictures are great. Here they are at home around the fire. Our fugitives: the writer’s son, the black boy and the tart.”

  Eddie snorts with laughter.

  “That’s great!” he says. “The writer’s son, the black boy and the tart.”

  “Sounds like a title, eh?” says Nattrass. “Now we need some action.”

  He lowers the camera. We don’t move.

  “I heard tell there was a black boy walking in Northumberland,” he says. “Heard tell he was walking with a scrawny punk lass. So I goes, Aha! That’ll be nobody else but Liam’s pals. They’ll be wanting to send the lad back to his hovel and he’ll be up and off and running away. Is that about the way of it? No answer, eh? Ah, well. It must be so. So I says, Lawabiding folk like me had better keep their eyes peeled, hadn’t we? We don’t want villains running away from the law and hiding out here on our lovely moors and refusing to get
back to where they come from, do we? After all …” He laughs at the thought of it. “Mebbe they’re terrorists. Mebbe they’re war criminals. And mebbe most likely they’re just liars and parasites and scum.” And he kicks Oliver, lightly, with the toe of his boot. “Come on. Best if you come back with us, sunshine.” He licks his lips. “Or do we think he’s going to struggle, lads? It’ll look great if he does, of course. The savage, turning savage.” He stands over Oliver. “Come on,” he says. “What you gonna do?”

  I jump from my rock and go for him. I shove him down. I punch him in the face again, again. I tell him he knows nothing, he’s a fascist pig. We struggle in the dirt. Then I’m kicked in the face and everything reels till I open my eyes again and Ned’s kneeling over me with the hammer raised.

  “You done that too many times, brother,” says Nattrass. He spits snot and blood. “So mebbe I should do you now, eh? It’d be self-defense. We’ve got the evidence.”

  “Just bloody dare,” says Crystal.

  She raises her fists. Oliver stays sitting on his rock. Then he says,

  “I was telling my story. You interrupted us.”

  “Oh, I ruined story time, lads! How’s the diddums going to get to sleep?”

  “You should go home, Nattrass,” says Oliver.

  Nattrass laughs.

  “You should,” says Oliver. “You don’t want to be messing about with somebody like me.”

  Oliver stands up. Nattrass backs away when he sees the knife in Oliver’s fist.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he says. His voice is shaking.

  “But you’re the one that brought the trouble,” says Oliver. “Nobody asked you to come here, did they?”

  Eddie and Ned turn away. They run back into the dark. Nattrass drops the camera. He takes out a knife of his own.

  “Don’t, Nattrass!” I say. “Just run!”

  But suddenly Oliver has him. He holds him tight. He holds the knife at Nattrass’s throat.

  “I was telling my story,” he whispers. “Now you have to listen, too. If you move, I’ll slit your throat.” He turns his eyes to me. “Keep back, Liam, or I’ll slit his throat.” He smiles. “Or maybe you would like me to?”

  “No!” says Nattrass.

  “We’ll see,” says Oliver. “Anyway, keep still, and I’ll continue. You’ve missed some of the tale, Nattrass, but that should be no problem. Just imagine this. I was eight years old. There I was in an ordinary village with my ordinary friends in an ordinary little village school. The soldiers came. They slaughtered my family. They shot my teacher, and they took us all. That’s where we’re up to.” He laughs. “They took us all. Perhaps you don’t know what I mean. They took us all, and they turned us into soldiers.”

  “Soldiers?” says Crystal. “But you were eight years old.”

  He laughs.

  “Crystal, the world is filled with eight-year-old soldiers. And seven-year-olds, nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds—if they last long enough. Boys and girls.” He presses the knife to Nattrass’s skin. “Did you know that, Nattrass?”

  “No,” whispers Nattrass.

  “But you should. And now you do! Do not forget it.”

  He touches the tiny trickle of blood that runs down the skin of Nattrass’s throat.

  “Oh, dear,” he whispers. “I told you to keep still. It will be dangerous for you to move. Why children? Well, it is perfectly understandable. We are small. We are enthusiastic. We can be made to be obedient and brave. We want to love. Isn’t that true, Nattrass? We want to love and to be loved. Don’t we?”

  “Yes,” says Nattrass.

  “Yes. And so if they take away our mothers and fathers and put monsters in their place and the monsters care for us and tell us what to do, then we will follow the monsters, we will love the monsters. And we will think that war is play. Because we just love to be wild. Don’t we? Yes, we do. And we are unimportant and insignificant, and there are many many many of us, so it doesn’t matter when we die.”

  Nattrass keeps dead still. His terrified eyes are on me.

  “It could have been any of us,” I say. “If we had been born in a different place, in a different time. It could have been me, or Crystal. …”

  “But it was not you. It was me. They killed my family, they killed my teacher, they gave me guns, they fed me drugs. We hid out. We hunted for our food. We raided and robbed. Sometimes we were even happy. Can you believe that?” He laughs. “We were sometimes happy, Nattrass! Do you know what it means to be happy? We sang songs. We skipped and marched. We walked arm in arm with our companions. It was such fun. One day they will tell tales about us. When enough time has passed, we may be heroes, like your Robin Hood and his merry men, Liam. There will be books in the schools filled with pictures of our mischievous faces, with happy accounts of our adventures. Won’t that be lovely, Nattrass? Won’t it?”

  “Yes,” gasps Nattrass. “Yes!”

  “Who were you fighting for?” I say.

  “It was a mystery! They told us we were fighting for our government, that we were bringing order and freedom to our country and it was our duty to fight hard and well. When we whispered together, we children, we said that that was wrong. We said that we were rebels, in fact, that we were fighting for the people against an evil government, and that our cause was right. We said that God and the people were on our side. The truth is that we never knew. There was only war. There was no truth.”

  Nattrass struggles.

  “What did I tell you, Nattrass? The knife will slip if you don’t listen to me.”

  “Please, Oliver,” I say.

  He ignores me.

  “The truth is,” he whispers, “that I became a very good boy soldier. I took part in slaughter. I went into villages and rounded up children like me and showed them how to become like me. Can you imagine that, Nattrass? Can you?”

  “Yes,” gasps Nattrass. “Please let me go.”

  “No. Not yet. Now listen, brother. Now you must imagine a little more. You must imagine that you are me. Can you imagine that? Can you?”

  “Yes. Anything. Get off me.”

  “Good. And imagine this: there is a village, an ordinary village like your village. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. It is an ordinary day. I think you cannot imagine Africa, so you must imagine it here. You must imagine your village, your people, your lives. Can you imagine that? Can you?”

  “Yes,” says Nattrass.

  “Yes. But it is such a leap to the next thing you must imagine. But you must imagine. You have been walking all day through the fields of Northumberland with your troupe. You have been seeking this village. You have whisky and drugs inside you. You are carrying a knife, a gun. You are a soldier and you are nine years old. Can you imagine that? Can you?”

  “No.”

  “No? But you must, brother. You have been nine years old, so you have memory to help you. And I am here beside you. I could not get closer to you, Nattrass. I am holding you so tight that we are almost one. I am whispering these things straight into your ear. And there is so much that I could whisper, but I ask you to imagine just one thing. So try. Will you try? Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. So you are nine years old. You are me. And you have been ordered to take this village, Nattrass. Why? You do not know. The question ‘Why?’ does not matter. It is what soldiers do. Take villages, kill and burn. So you move into the village. There is much firing of guns, much screaming. Can you imagine? Can you?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “Suddenly …,” says Oliver.

  He pauses. His hold on Nattrass seems to weaken, but Nattrass doesn’t move.

  “Suddenly,” says Oliver, “there is a girl in front of you. She too must be nine years old. She is an ordinary girl, like your sister, perhaps, like any sister. Just like you were when you were nine years old, Nattrass. So you must be able to imagine that. There she is, before you, and she has a rock in her hand. And she is screaming, howling. She sc
reams that her mother is gone, her father is gone. Imagine that, Nattrass. And now she is about to hit you with her rock. So what will you do? What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then I will tell you, brother. And don’t worry. You need not go on imagining. You are not me. I am Henry Meadows. I am the one who raises the knife. I am the one who screams and who plunges it deep into her heart.”

  Silence. Oliver loosens his grip. He steps back. He holds the knife out to Nattrass.

  “Take it, Nattrass,” he says. “Go on. Use it.”

  “You did that?” says Nattrass.

  “Yes. I did. And it was just one of the many things I did. Take the knife. Go on. Imagine that knife in my heart. Imagine me dying at your feet. You’d be a hero, Nattrass. And I’d be gone.”

  Oliver steps closer to Nattrass. He holds out the knife.

  “Do it!” he says.

  The fire crackles, hisses. Crystal sobs. Suddenly, Death Dealer is sitting snugly at home in my hand. Nattrass takes a deep breath. He takes the knife. He raises his hand. I go for him.

  “No!” yells Crystal.

  “No!” yells Oliver.

  Too late.

  I rush at Nattrass. I knock him to the earth. I plunge the knife towards his heart.

  And then there are more lights in the trees, and footsteps, and the soldiers have come for us.

  now

  1

  It’s hard to kill. And the knife was blunted by the rock. I knelt by Nattrass and saw his blood trickling to the earth. I saw my knife in his flesh. But I’d missed. The blade had gone into the flesh below his armpit. Hardly deep enough to hurt, never mind to kill.

  The soldiers had been watching us all day, using us as imaginary renegades. They were young. They came through the trees. They stood around with their rifles resting in their arms. They smoked cigarettes, they shook their heads at us, they tut-tutted, they tried not to grin. They called for their doctor, who brought ointment and bandages.