Skull in the Wood by Sandra Greaves Read Free Book Online

have. As it was, I just glared.
    â€˜I knew you’d come back,’ I said. I was trying for cool, but it’s kind of difficult when you’re lying on the ground like a sack of potatoes.
    â€˜Yeah, yeah. But I nearly didn’t. So what’s wrong?’
    â€˜Obvious, isn’t it?’ I pointed to my hiking sock. ‘And it’s all your stupid fault.’
    I have to say it for Matt – he was quite good about the situation. He didn’t apologise for making me fall over, but he found a stick for me to lean on and chucked it over to me. When he saw I was having difficulty, he put on this bored face but came over and helped me to my feet. To be honest, my ankle wasn’t that bad any more, but I milked it for all it was worth. Then I remembered the thing at the bottom of the standing stone and poked the ground with my stick. It gave a faint metallic dink.
    Matt frowned. ‘What’s that?’
    â€˜Don’t know. Buried treasure?’
    Matt snorted. ‘The devil’s crusty old toenail, more like.’
    But he bent down and started fumbling in the leaf mould anyway. Jez tried to join in but he pushed her aside – gently, though. Maybe he was beginning to like her after all.
    â€˜It’s some sort of box,’ he said, and tugged at it impatiently.
    â€˜Let me,’ I said. ‘I’m the one who found it.’
    I shoved him aside and tried to reach down to it, but my ankle made me yelp with pain. Matt sighed, helped me up again and knelt down at the foot of the standing stone. When tugging at the box didn’t work, he dug carefully around its sides until it shifted. At last he pulled it out. It was made of blackened metal, about the length of a paperback but much narrower, with a rusty catch at the side. He stood and, after a moment’s hesitation, handed it to me. It wasn’t heavy – no gold coins, then. I brushed the leaf mould off it, jiggled the catch and prised open the lid.
    Inside, lying on a bed of folded purple velvet, was a skull. A tiny white head with a long, thin, curving bill. It took me a minute to realise that this was the skull of a bird, and not some mutant animal or baby dinosaur. The bill was huge – totally out of proportion to the head.
    Balancing on my stick, I turned away from Mattand picked the skull out of the box. It was as light as a feather. And it belonged to me. I didn’t want to show Matt.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ he said, reaching round and grabbing at my hand. ‘Give it to me. I want to see it, too.’ He sounded angry. His voice was different – harder.
    â€˜Careful!’ I said. ‘You’ll break it, you clumsy idiot!’ But I handed over the skull, even though I didn’t want to.
    Matt held it in both hands and stared at it. ‘What do you think it is?’ he whispered.
    I found myself whispering, too. ‘A wading bird. Like a curlew or a whimbrel. That beak’s for digging things out of the mud. But you don’t get waders in the middle of a wood. It’s all wrong.’
    â€˜Why? It didn’t fly into the box all on its own, did it?’ said Matt, louder now. He was acting confident, but it wasn’t that convincing.
    I took out the purple material from the bottom of the box. It was faded and worn, with a kind of raised pattern of velvet leaves. It reminded me of something, I couldn’t think what.
    â€˜So how did it get here then, if you’re so clever?’ I said.
    â€˜I don’t know. But I think we should put it back.’
    I was so surprised I wobbled on my ankle and nearly fell over again.
    â€˜No way,’ I said. ‘You can’t mean that. I’m keeping it.’
    Matt hesitated. ‘Listen a minute, will you? Gabe warned me about something last night.’ He rubbed his nose, embarrassed, but ploughed on. ‘He said there would be omens. Birds first – they’re the harbingers, he said, though I