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Book The Swan. came from also has something to do with star chart

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Sinkhole location July 4

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solving them

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Introduction: Best Codes

This instructable is filled with tons of cool codes and ciphers I'm sure all of you will enjoy.

For more awesome codes and cipher go to my website bestcodes.weebly.com
or visit bestcodesgame.weebly.com
to practice decoding

Also visit my other instructable "Movie Codes" or see them here at

http://bestcodes.weebly.com/movie-codes.html

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Step 1: A1Z26

A1Z26

The A1Z26 code is a very simple code. As you know there are 26 letters in the American alphabet so Z would equal 26 because it is the 26th letter in the alphabet.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Step 2: ASCII

ASCII

ASCII is a computer code that is similar to binary. Instead of using 1's and 0's like binary it uses the numbers from 1-256

A=65

B=66

C=67

D=68

E=69

F=70

G=71

H=72

I=73

J=74

K=75

L=76

M=77

N=78

O=79

P=80

Q=81

R=82

S=83

T=84

U=85

V=86

W=87

X=88

Y=89

Z=90

a=97

b=98

c=99

d=100

e=101

f=102

g=103

h=104

i=105

j=106

k=107

l=108

m=109

n=110

o=111

p=112

q=113

r=114

s=115

t=116

u=117

v=118

w=119

x=120

y=121

z=122

0=48

1=49

2=50

3=51

4=52

5=53

6=54

7=55

8=56

9=57

Step 3: Atbash

Atbash

The Atbash code is just the alphabet backwards. For example A would equal Z.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

Step 4: Binary

Binary

The Binary code is a code that the computers recognize using only 1's and 0's. It is a very complicated code because they are different for lowercase and capital.

A 01000001

B 01000010

C 01000011

D 01000100

E 01000101

F 01000110

G 01000111

H 01001000

I 01001001

J 01001010

K 01001011

L 01001100

M 01001101

N 01001110

O 01001111

P 01010000

Q 01010001

R 01010010

S 01010011

T 01010100

U 01010101

V 01010110

W 01010111

X 01011000

Y 01011001

Z 01011010

a 01100001

b 01100010

c 01100011

d 01100100

e 01100101

f 01100110

g 01100111

h 01101000

i 01101001

j 01101010

k 01101011

l 01101100

m 01101101

n 01101110

o 01101111

p 01110000

q 01110001

r 01110010

s 01110011

t 01110100

u 01110101

v 01110110

w 01110111

x 01111000

y 01111001

z 01111010

0. 00110000

1. 00110001

2. 00110010

3. 00110011

4. 00110100

5. 00110101

6. 00110110

7. 00110111

8. 00111000

9. 00111001

! 00100001
@ 01000000

# 00100011

$ 00100100

% 00100101

^ 01011110

& 00100110

* 00101010

( 00101000

) 00101001

- 00101101

_ 01011111

+ 00101011

= 00111101

; 00111011

: 00111010

" 00100010

' 00100111

` 01100000

~ 01111110

< 00111100

> 00111110

? 00111111

¿ 10111111

, 00101100

. 00101110

/ 00101111

{ 01111011

} 01111101

[ 01011011

] 01011101

€ 10101100

¶ 10110110

Step 6: Caesar Cipher

Caesar Cipher

The Caesar cipher is a code Julius Caesar invented when he mailed letters. He invented it so if his messenger was robbed of that letter and the robber wouldn't be able to read it. It is probably one of the most simple codes ever. It is 3 letters back so A would be X. The Rot Cipher is almost the same as the Caesar Cipher.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W

Step 7: Columnar Cipher

Columnar Cipher

The Columnar Cipher is a type of transposition cipher.

1. Get Keyword

2. If your keyword is Zebras, that is 6 letters. You would write 632415 because Z is the 6th highest letter in the word and E is the 3rd highest letter and so on

3. Then message under the numbers in rows of 6, because Zebra is a 6 letter word.

4. Write out 123456. Under the number write the letters from each column that match the numbers in the original line of numbers.

Step 8: Combination Cipher

Combination Cipher

A Combination Cipher is a Cipher using 2 or more codes. For example if you wanted to make the best code ever, you could do Atbash, Caesar Cipher, Vigernere Cipher, and then A1Z26.

Step 12: Francis Bacons Substitution Cipher

Francis Bacons Substitution Cipher

One of Bacons best code was a code that used bold and regular fonts in a certain order to make a new letter. For example "code" would be something like this "Fra nci s Bacon wa s a co ol guy". After you see the sentence put all of the letters in to groups of 5, like this "Fra nc i sBac onwa s aco o l" leave out any extra letters. Once you have it like this you are ready to decode.

*= Regular Letter B= Bold Letter

A= *****

B=****B

C=***B*

D=***BB

E=**B**

F=**B*B

G=**BB*

H=**BBB

I=*B***

J=*B**B

K=*B*B*

L=*B*BB

M=*BB**

N=*BB*B

O=*BBB*

P=*BBBB

Q=B****

R=B***B

S=B**B*

T=B**BB

U=B*B**

V=B*B*B

W=B*BB*

X=B*BBB

Y=BB***

Z=BB**B

Step 14: Keyboard Code

Keyboard Code

The Keyboard Code is just the order of letters your keyboard.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Q W E R T Y U I O P A S D F G H J K L Z X C V B N M

Step 16: Phone Code

Phone Code

The Phone code is really cool because not a lot of people know it. It is just the number the letter is on and then what number it is on that number. For example A is on 1st number on 2 so it would be 2 1

2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 9

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Step 19: ROT Cipher

Rot Cipher

The Rot Cipher is when you take a letter and put it back or fourth to equal a different letter. An example of this would be -1 equals A=Z. +1 equals A+B It is Related to the Caesar Cipher.

This is a Print out of the Rot Cipher Wheel. Cut out the 2 circles leaving the inner circle NOT HOLLOW. Then you stick a tack or a paper clip through the middle of the inner wheel. Then you can spin it around to do your cipher.

Step 21: Scytale

Scytale

The cylinder decodes for you!

To make a cylinder cipher you need long strip of paper and cylinder.

Wrap the paper around the cylinder so there are no parts of the cylinder showing.

You can temporarily tape down the edges to help you with this part. write your message across the cylinder (write 1 or 2 letters on each part of the strip) Then unwrap the paper from the cylinder.

You can't decode the cipher unless you have a cylinder the same diameter as the one it was made on.

Step 25: Vigenere Cipher

Vigenere Cipher

The Vigenere Cipher is a 26x26 grid of letters a-z. It is a more complicated cipher so I will have to try to demonstrate with explaining battle ship.

Directions

1. Choose a code word (any word. no numbers)

2. Write it like this (my code word will be "code") i m t r y i n g t o e x p l a i n h o w t o d o t h i s it doesn't matter if the code word cant fit evenly c o d e c o d e c o d e c o d e c o d e c o d e c o d e

3. Look at the grid and follow the row i and the column c to the intersection like in battle ship. the letter they intersect on is k. that is how you encode it. To decode it take the code letter in this case c and go until you find k. Then go up all the way so you will find i.

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This instructable is filled with tons of cool codes and ciphers I'm sure all of you will enjoy. For more awesome codes and cipher go to my website bestcodes.weebly.com or visit bestcodesgame.weebly.comto practice decoding Also visit my other instructable "Movie Codes" or see them here at http://bestcodes.weebly.com/movie-codes.html Share A1Z26 The A1Z26 code is a very simple code.

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1902-1618

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WARNING: Volunteering with Listening Friends of America may expose you to graphic content and writings of a mature nature. LFoA takes every reasonable precaution to assure your safety and privacy. Please be aware that Volunteering with LFoA is YOUR choice, and you may terminate your engagement at any time.

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Carolyn Carver Psychiatrist Darlington Facility

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Carolyn Carver Psychiatrist Darlington Facility

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Facebook Spotlight 2015

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In this edition of the Staff Spotlight: A valuable member of our team at the Darlington facility, Caroline Carver, Psychiatrist Caroline has been with the Darlington LFOA facility since our...

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2013

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In this edition of the Staff Spotlight: George Madson, VP at Darlington George Madson came to Listening Friends of America 15 years ago as an unproven energetic young man who believed...

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Facebook

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In this edition of the Staff Spotlight: A valuable member of our team at the Darlington facility, Jacob Nilson Jacob has been indispensable over the better part of two decades working here at our...

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unsure of relation 11/10/2015

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Baltimore City government does not track its contractors well enough to know if the city is being hosed, an Abell Foundation report revealed recently. The report suggests that more information about the city's contracts should be made available to the public. Elected officials say nope.

The report is called "The Opacity Problem." Abell researcher Cristie F. Cole wanted to find out which city construction contracts were completed on time and on budget, and which ones were granted extensions for more money, more time, or both. She wanted to analyze which contractors, or which city agencies, managed their contracts best. And she wanted to find out how often the city demanded "liquidated damages," a penalty it can exact for slow or substandard work.

All this makes sense from a responsible consumer's perspective. Why would you work with a contractor again if they were repeatedly missing deadlines and/or over-budget?

But Cole found that this basic data, which should be at the Board of Estimates' fingertips for consultation before every contract it awards, was not available.

Cole began her research by looking at "Extra Work Orders," the contract cost overruns (which are not considered overruns) that routinely pepper Board of Estimates agendas and just as routinely are approved without debate or discussion.

These extra work orders-EWOs for short-can sometimes double the cost of a road, pipe, or other infrastructure project. Using Board of Estimates records, the Baltimore Brew's Mark Reutter has been questioning this practice for years, but Cole's project tried to look at all the contracts the city let in an entire year-FY 2012-to see if there were any patterns. She picked 2012 because it's both recent enough that the information about the contracts is still relevant, and long enough ago that the contracts ought all to be completed.

Cole's analysis began with the agenda published each week by the Board of Estimates, which must ratify all city spending. She wanted to know the original bid price, the original completion date, the number of days each project was slated to take, and any additions to these via EWOs for all contracts let by the Department of Public Works, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of General Services. There were 68 of them, with an original total bid price of $212 million, Cole reports.

The next question was, how many of these contractors were fined for blowing deadlines and raising costs?

"That was one of the hardest data points that I tried to find," Cole says. "I asked how many contracts we assessed liquidated damages. They said they would have to flip through the files and find the letter."

There is just one place where a record of liquidated damages is kept and it is a one-page letter buried in inches-thick paper files, Cole says she was told.

The letters could not be retrieved without a massive and expensive search.

And when Cole tried to get the actual contracts and the engineer's certificate which is filed after the project is complete and audited, she found another problem: Only 11 of the contracts had engineer's certificates, and of those 11, "seven had disparities between the two data sets in the amount of additional funds granted and two had disparities in the number of additional days granted," the report says.

Unable to reconcile these discrepancies, she suspended the analysis.

The question for city officials is simple: Why do city records not match up? It would appear that the number of days an infrastructure project takes to complete, and the number of dollars originally bid, and the number of dollars finally paid, would all be facts not subject to dispute. It would follow that such simple, key facts would, as a matter of routine, be made part of the various records the city keeps. That this is not so would appear to be alarming and worthy of explanation and/or efforts at reform.

But Cole's report has generated little interest outside the Brew-and little public comment from those in a position to discuss it. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake complained that she had not been contacted by Cole. The mayor told the Brew that the report "raises some important questions that we're looking into." No one has yet addressed the report's suggestions for reform.

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young also complained that Cole had not contacted him during her research, and left the impression in her report that politicians who sit on the Board of Estimates might be swayed by campaign donations from these contractors. He did not reply to City Paper's request for additional comment.

"Adding more data to the Board of Estimates Agenda is not the solution," Comptroller Joan Pratt told the Brew. "The Board of Estimates Agenda provides sufficient information to the public."

Cole's report notes that just four contractors received nearly half of the contracts let in 2012 by the three city agencies she surveyed.

Cole says the four companies were P. Flanigan & Sons, the road contractor, M. Luis Construction, Machado Construction, and Allied Contractors, Inc. She did not analyze the total dollar amounts each company bid and, as the report explains, she was not able to determine the amounts they were actually paid for their work. She did note that the companies contributed to at least one of the three elected members of the Board of Estimates, which has five members and is effectively controlled by the mayor, as she appoints the two unelected members.

Cole's report suggests that city agencies post the scheduled completion date of every project on the sign that is posted outside the work site. They usually list only the year and season, which leaves several months' room for error. It also suggests that the Board of Estimates have a public "scorecard" for each contractor, derived from the ratings city project managers have assigned, along with other data points. She'd like campaign contributions to city politicians included in the scorecard. She also suggests that the reason for the EWOs, along with each new deadline, be included in the minutes of the Board of Estimates. That would make the Board of Estimates agendas and minutes a more useful source for tracking contracts.

Cole is a former CitiStat analyst who moved to the State's Attorney's Office but was terminated last spring after Marilyn Mosby took that office; Cole supported former State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein in the election. She says she spoke with city agencies during her research and had a cordial relationship with them. The report mentions new computer software that supposedly will make keeping track of future contracts easier.

The agencies did not have much to say about Cole's report or her recommendations.

Department of Public Works spokesmen Jeffrey Raymond and Kurt Kocher say the problems Cole found are in the past. "Let's not walk the same path that the Abell Foundation researcher did," Raymond says in a phone interview. "It was a mess on a variety of levels." They emailed a PowerPoint presentation outlining the department's new project management system, which has been going into place since Rudy Chow took over as director in early 2014. "We're reimagining the office so that the whole issue, the opacity issue, pretty much goes away," Raymond says.

Adrienne Barnes, the Department of Transportation spokeswoman, says DOT Director William Johnson responded to Cole and summarized his comments: "The study represents a great opportunity to determine if the City's 'low bidder' policy as delineated in the Charter is truly in the best interest of the City," she wrote City Paper in an email.

Department of General Services Director Steve Sharkey responded to City Paper's questions by email. He says he does not have specifics about which DGS projects were included in the study and which were not. He says neither he nor any of his staff communicated with Cole during the study, and he identified the new contract-tracking software that the city is implementing. It's an Oracle product called Primavera CM14, P6, BI Publisher.

It will cost the city $200,000 to start up, plus the salary for a program manager the department hopes to hire next month.

"Yes," he says, "we can put dates on signs."

He says the agency plans to do so

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Follow the Money: Tracking city contract payments impossible, Abell Report Finds

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Baltimore City government does not track its contractors well enough to know if the city is being hosed, an Abell Foundation report revealed recently. The report suggests that more information about the city's contracts should be made available to the public. Elected officials say nope.

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April 15 1939

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Four sewer openings within a three-block area of East Baltimore last night yielded paper-wrapped parts of the body of a young woman.

The girl was tentatively described as between 16 and 18 years of age.

Dr. Charles W. Wood, Eastern district coroner, said the right hand and the left leg, which were found at 6 p.m., were from a girl who had been dead for no more than four hours.

Having discounted the possibility that the limbs had been discarded my a medical student, the police began operating on the theory that they had a "torso" murder on their hands.

The heart, which was taken from a manhole at Lombard and Wolfe streets, contained cuts.

Soon after the first find--a hand and a leg at Chapel and Lombard streets--detectives set out with a list of thirteen missing girls, 25 years and under. All police stations in the city were ordered to investigate rumors or reports of recently missing young women.

Chief Inspector Stephen G. Nelson and Inspector John H. Mintiens took charge of the investigation.

The search started when 8-year-old Nicholas Krepnet, of 190 East Lombard street, went after his rubber ball into a manhole at Chapel and Lombard streets and came upon a blue marble, a cane and a paper bundle. Hardly had he found the bundle when he cried.

"It's a hand down there; it's a hand down there."

He came out in a hurry and joined his 8-year-old playmate, Paul Silwick, who lives next door. George Gerlach, a grocer across the street, called the police.

Patrolman Paul King entered the sewer and came up with a hand wrapped in paper and a leg similarly wrapped. The newspaper, part of which was a Baltimore comic section, bore the date of Sunday, April 2.

The dismembered parts were taken to The City Morge, and members of the Municipal Bureau of Sewers, police and boys searched other manholes in the neighborhood.

About 7:30 p.m. the sewer men found several other organs, including the heart, at Lombard and Wolfe streets. They were removed to the morgue while police and others continued the search.

Dr. Wood, after examining the parts at the morgue, immediately dismissed the possibility that the hand and leg were part of a corpse dismembered by a medical student. When reminded with the possibility, Dr. Wood said:

"No, no, no. That just isn't possible.

Dr. Wood then said he believed a murder had been committed within four or five hours previous to the discovery. He described the parts as those of a girl between 16 and 18 years old, slightly less than five feet tall, weighing about one hundred pounds. The hand wore no ring or other means of identification, and it was removed to Police Headquarters for finger printing

The third find in the grim series was at 10.10 p.m. by Joseph Wosk, 20, of 13 South Anne street, and Jack Bernstein, of 1809 East Lombard street, who with others had been looking in the sewers missed by the squad of investigators.

These youths at Lombard and Chester streets found a right foot and a right leg from the knee to the ankle. These, too, were paper-wrapped, but the wrappings could not be identified.

At 11 p.m. George A. Jones, who was on a bureau of sewers trucks, opened a manhole at Chester and Fayette streets and brought out two badly rumpled suits of lounging pajamas. All makers' marks had been torn out, but one suit bore the mark 17, indicating its size.

The pajamas were taken to police headquarters where Capt. John Carey, night commander, described them as:

Pair one; light blue pajamas, trimmed with blue and white plaid at lapels and pocket, which is in the lower right-hand corner. The blouse is a Chinese slip-over model with a tassel. It has blue buttons and bluish green military frogs.

Pair two; mulberry or dark red, same style, trimmed in blue, having white beading and white buttons and a pinkish-white tassel. The material in both pajamas was described as cotton crinkle.

Early this morning the search was continuing, with a small crowd still following the sewer truck while the city employees and police lifted manholes.

In an effort to identify the victim, Detective Lieutenant Fred Harborn and Sergt. David Wingrove left headquarters with a list of girls reported missing.

Thought all the names were in the file of missing persons, it was pointed out that some of them may have returned without knowledge to the police. The names are:

Nellie Ruth Barnes, 15. 3554 Poole street, missing since April 7.

Esther Baublitz, 16. Parkton, Md., January 11.

Minerva Beach, 21, Johns Hopkins student nurse. Orange, N.J., March 20.

Nora Lee Brunt, 17. 1114 North Calvert street, March 24.

Catherine Clarke, 20. 1010 East Chase street, January 18.

Virginia Crook, 21. 110 North MIlton avenue, March 26.

Carrie Ganion, 22. 1742 Hanover street, February 27.

Frances Vaesta Nonemaker, 18. 2242 Wilkens avenue, March 27.

Mary Pritchett, 25. 4605 York road, March 27.

Marie Stack, 19. 108 North Durham street, February 11.

Elise Toner, 15. 1613 East Oliver street, February 15.

Ethel Mae Williams, 25. 3613 Woodland avenue, April 9.

Mary Zeberlein, 23. Essex, Md, March 12.

Though finger prints were taken by the Bertillon bureau, it wasn't deemed likely the prints would be in the files.

Police threw all their investigating agencies into the area, beginning by questioning residents of the neighborhoods. They had two theories at the outset:

That the victim was pregnant, and either was killed or had died in childbirth.

That the killing was the work of a homicidal maniac.

At the same time, Lieut. Ezekie Williams, one of those in charge of the investigation, said an automobile could have easily pulled up at the curb where the remains were found and disposed of the dismembered body.

Lieutenant Williams said it would not have been necessary to lift the manholes to dispose of the body, as the rain drains were large enough to admit the bundle.

The sewer was dry when the remains were found, and last night police hoped that there would be no rain to obscure other clues. All the police boats will cruise the harbor today in the vicinity in an effort to find other parts of the body.

It was pointed out that the packaged parts of the body found were not weighted and those not found probably will rise to the surface if they find their way into the harbor.

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Four sewer openings within a three-block area of East Baltimore last night yielded paper-wrapped parts of the body of a young woman. The girl was tentatively described as between 16 and 18 years of age. Dr. Charles W.

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may be important

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A city worker fell into a sinkhole on West Mulberry Street and sustained minor injuries on the Fourth of July, Baltimore officials said.

The street, a major thoroughfare into downtown Baltimore, is expected to remain closed for much of the week after a water main broke and the pavement collapsed on Monday, city officials said.

No other details on the worker's fall were available.

Photographs released Monday morning by the Department of Public Works showed the center of the road collapsed in an area between Greene and Paca streets. A city public works spokesman said emergency repairs are underway but that officials do not expect Mulberry will be passable Tuesday morning.

The spokesman, Jeffrey Raymond, said the department should have a better sense of when the road can reopen later Tuesday.
john.fritze@baltsun.com

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City worker falls into Mulberry Street sinkhole

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A city worker fell into a sinkhole on West Mulberry Street and sustained minor injuries on the Fourth of July, Baltimore officials said. The street, a major thoroughfare into downtown Baltimore, is expected to remain closed for much of the week after a water main broke and the pavement collapsed on Monday, city officials said.

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7/5/16

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Mulberry Street in downtown Baltimore could be closed for weeks because of a growing sinkhole that may have developed undetected even as crews worked recently to replace a water main on the busy commuter thoroughfare.

On Tuesday, a city inspector who tumbled into the crater when the road gave way beneath him a day earlier was released from the hospital.

The hole initially spanned a single lane of the three-lane eastbound artery, but a day later stretched from one sidewalk to the other, between Paca and Greene streets.

Mulberry is the latest instance of failing infrastructure causing sinkholes in the area. A sewer main collapsed in Mount Vernon in April. Last month, a break in a city-owned water main caused a sinkhole in Cockeysville.

City transportation officials said they would release a traffic advisory Wednesday suggesting detours around Mulberry Street, a key west-to-east thoroughfare that carries U.S. 40 across downtown.

Crews are still investigating how the earth eroded beneath the busy street, which is paved with concrete. City officials believe a leak from a water pipe serving a single building is responsible.

Just feet south of that pipe, a narrow trench of fresh asphalt shows where a 20-inch water main was replaced about three weeks ago. But there was no sign of trouble during that excavation, officials said.

"There was no visible water," said Art Shapiro, chief of engineering and construction for the Department of Public Works.

A buckle in the road first appeared about a week ago, officials said.

They said they don't know how long the water pipe had been leaking. That's because the leak was contained under concrete - a material likely chosen to pave the heavily trafficked roadway because it is more durable than asphalt, officials said. But had asphalt been used instead, water may have come bubbling to the surface, offering a warning before causing the street to collapse, they said.

Sinkholes can develop when water erodes dirt underneath pavement. In some cases, such as a sinkhole that stretched across East Monument Street near Johns Hopkins Hospital for six months in 2012, rainwater is to blame.

But in others, leaks occur as old infrastructure fails and continue unmonitored because crews have no way of knowing about them until something goes visibly wrong.

The Public Works Department replaces 15 miles of water mains each year to prevent breaks and sinkholes, officials said.

In this case, that effort did not catch the leak because the faulty 8-inch-wide pipe was not as high a priority as the larger main nearby due to its small size, Shapiro said. The pipes underneath Mulberry Street date to the 1930s or 1940s, he estimated.

There were no signs that repairs to the roadway were needed, and officials do not believe water seeped through joints between concrete slabs, said Adrienne Barnes, a spokeswoman for the city transportation department. Even if the roadway had been paved with asphalt, she said, a sinkhole still would have happened.

Information was not immediately available about how recently the road was paved, when and where utility work required cuts into the concrete or how many motorists travel on it daily, Barnes said.

Public works officials said they will continue to investigate what led to the Mulberry Street leak and the sinkhole.

There were signs of damage to an 80-inch sewer main along the same stretch, and officials said one theory is that the main carried away dirt that eroded from beneath the roadway. Sewage is moving more slowly than normal through the main, Shapiro said.

"What we have to determine is what was the cause and the effect," city public works spokesman Jeff Raymond said.

Public works crews don't know yet what repairs are needed to the underground infrastructure - and must address that before work to restore the roadway can begin. Shapiro said he expects work will include repairing what is likely a concrete sewage main and checking the integrity of the newly installed water main, which no longer has dirt supporting it. As a result, officials said, the damaged section of Mulberry Street is likely to be closed for weeks.

The incident comes about two months after a crater opened up on Centre Street in Mount Vernon because of a crumbling sewer main. Between Park Avenue and Charles Street, Centre Street - another west-to-east thoroughfare across the city - was closed for weeks. It is partially reopened, though repair work there is expected to continue for several weeks more.

In Cockeysville, a portion of York Road was closed for days after a water main ruptured June 20, washing away a lane of traffic near Thornton Mill Road and interrupting water service for thousands of residents. It took city crews two days to fix the main before the road could be repaired.
sdance@baltsun.com twitter.com/ssdance

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mulberry street sinkhole baltimore inspector injured

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Sinkhole could close Mulberry Street for weeks; city inspector injured in fall down crater

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Mulberry Street in downtown Baltimore could be closed for weeks because of a growing sinkhole that may have developed undetected even as crews worked recently to replace a water main on the busy commuter thoroughfare. On Tuesday, a city inspector who tumbled into the crater when the road gave way beneath him a day earlier was released from the hospital.

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Original newspaper article

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Children's story

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Something You Should Read

I found this in one of my old "children's" books not too long ago. I say children in quotes because this story (actually the seven stories in this book) are not really suited to children. Anyway, the book is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl. And the rest of the stories are great too. But this one really struck me. Here it is. (Be forewarned: it's 11 pages typed, so it'll take you a bit to read. But I think it's worth it.)

The Swan

&nbsp Ernie had been given a .22-caliber rifle for his birthday.
&nbsp His father, who was already slouching on the sofa watching television at nine-thirty on this Saturday morning, said, "Let's see what you can pot, boy. Make yourself useful. Bring us back a rabbit for supper."
&nbsp "There's rabbits in that big field the other side of the lake," Ernie said. "I seen 'em."
&nbsp "Then go out and nab one," the father said, picking breakfast from between his front teeth with a split matchstick. "Go out and nab us a rabbit."
&nbsp "I'll get yer two," Ernie said.
&nbsp "And on the way back," the father said, "get me a quart bottle of brown ale."
&nbsp "Gimme the money, then," Ernie said.
&nbsp The father, without taking his eyes from the TV screen, fished in his pocket for a pound note. "And don't try pinchin' the change like you did last time," he said. "You'll get a thick ear if you do, birthday or no birthday."
&nbsp "Don't worry," Ernie said.
&nbsp "And if you want to practice and get your eye in with that gun," the father said, "birds is best. See 'ow many spadgers you can knock down, right?"
&nbsp "Right," Ernie said. "There's spadgers all the way up the lane in the 'edges. Spadgers is easy."
&nbsp "If you think spadgers is easy," the father said, "go get yourself a jenny wren. Jenny wrens is 'alf the size of spadgers and they never sit still for one second. Get yourself a jenny wren before you start shootin' yer mouth off about 'ow clever you is."
&nbsp "Now Albert," his wife said, looking up from the sink. "That's not nice, shootin' little birds in the nestin' season. I don't mind rabbits, but little birds in the nestin' season is another thing altogether."
&nbsp "Shut your mouth," the father said. "Nobody's askin' your opinion. And listen to me, boy," he said to Ernie. "Don't go wavin' that thing about in the street because you ain't got no license. Stick it down your trouser leg till you're out in the country, right?"
&nbsp "Don't worry," Ernie said. He took the gun and the box of bullets and went out to see what he could kill. He was a big lout of a boy, fifteen years old this birthday. Like his truck-driver father, he had small, slitty eyes set very close together near the top of the nose. His mouth was loose, the lips often wet. Brought up in a household where physical violence was an everyday occurrence, he was himself an extremely violent person. Most Saturday afternoons, he and a gang of friends traveled by train or bus to soccer matches, and if they didn't manage to get into a bloody fight before they returned home, they considered it a wasted day. He took great pleasure in catching small boys after school and twisting their arms behind their backs. Then he would order them to say insulting and filthy things about their own parents.
&nbsp "Ow! Please don't, Ernie! Please!"
&nbsp "Say it or I'll twist your arm off!"
&nbsp They always said it. Then he would give the arm an extra twist, and the victim would go off in tears.
&nbsp Ernie's best friend was called Raymond. He lived four doors away, and he, too, was a big boy for his age. But while Ernie was heavy and loutish, Raymond was tall, slim, and muscular.
&nbsp Outside Raymond's house, Ernie put two fingers in his mouth and gave a long, shrill whistle. Raymond came out.
&nbsp "Look what I got for me birthday," Ernie said, showing the gun.
&nbsp "Cripes!" Raymond said. "We can have some fun with that!"
&nbsp "Come on, then," Ernie said. "We're goin'up to the big field the other side of the lake and get us a rabbit."
&nbsp The two boys set off. This was a Saturday morning in May, and the countryside was beautiful around the small village where the boys lived. The chestnut trees were in full flower and the hawthorn was white around the hedges. To reach the big rabbit field, Ernie and Raymond had first to walk down a narrow hedgy lane for half a mile. Then they must cross the railway line, and go around the big lake where wild ducks and moorhens and coots and ring-ouzels lived.Beyind the lake, over the hill and down the other side, lay the rabbit field. This was all private land belonging to Douglas Highton, and the lake itself was a sanctuary for waterfowl.
&nbsp All the way up the lane, they took turns with the gun, potting at small birds in the hedges. Ernie got a bullfinch and a hedge sparrow. Raymond got a second bullfinch, a whitethroat and a yellowhammer. As each bird was killed, they tied it by the legs to a line of string. Raymond never went anywhere without a big ball of string in his jacket pocket, and a knife. Now they had five little birds dangling on the line of string.
&nbsp You know something, Raymond said. We can eat these.
&nbsp Dont talk so daft, Ernie said. Theres not enough meat on one of those to feed a woodhouse.
&nbsp There is, too, Raymond said. The Frenchies eat em and so do the Eyrties. Mr. Sanders told us about it in class. He said the Frenchies and the Eyeties put up nets and catch em by the million and then they eat em.
&nbsp All right, then, Ernie said. Lets see ow many we can get. Then well take em ome and put em in the rabbit stew.
&nbsp As they progressed up the lane, they shot at every little bird they saw. By the time they got to the railway line, they had fourteen small dead birds dangling on the line of string.
&nbsp Hey! whispered Ernie, pointing with a long arm. Look over there!
&nbsp There was a group of trees and bushes alongside the railway line, and beside one of the bushes stood a small boy. He was looking up into the branches of an old tree through a pair of binoculars.
&nbsp You know who that is? Raymond whispered back. Its that little twerp Watson.
&nbsp Youre right! Ernie whispered. Its Watson, the scum of the earth!
&nbsp Peter Watson was always the enemy. Ernie and Raymond detested him because he was nearly everything that they were not. He had a small, frail body. His face was freckled, and he wore spectacles with thick lenses. He was a brilliant pupil, already in the senior class at school although he was only thirteen. He loved music and played the piano well. He was no good at games. He was quiet and polite. His clothes, although patched and darned, were always clean. And his father did not drive a truck or work in a factory. He worked at the bank.
&nbsp Lets give the little perisher a fright, Ernie whispered.
&nbsp The two bigger boys crept up close to the small boy, who didnt see them because he still had the binoculars to his eyes.
&nbsp Ands up! shouted Ernie, pointing the gun.
&nbsp Peter Watson jumped. He lowered the binoculars and stared through his spectacles at the two intruders.
&nbsp Go on! Ernie shouted. Stick em up!
&nbsp I wouldnt point that gun if I were you, Peter Watson said.
&nbsp Were givin the orders round ere! Ernie said.
&nbsp So stick em up, unless you want a slug in the guts!
&nbsp Peter Watson stood quite still, holding the binoculars in front of him with both hands. He looked at Raymond. Then he looked at Ernie. He was not afraid, but he knew better than to play the fool with these two. He had suffered a good deal from their attentions over the years.
&nbsp What do you want? he asked.
&nbsp I want you to stick em up! Ernie yelled at him. Cant you understand English?
&nbsp Peter Watson didnt move.
&nbsp Ill count to five, Ernie said, and if theyre not up by then, you get it in the guts. One...two...three...
&nbsp Peter Watson raised his arms slowly above his head. It was the only sensible thing to do. Raymond stepped forward and snatched the binoculars from his hand. Whats this? he snapped. Who you spyin on?
&nbsp Nobody.
&nbsp Dont lie, Watson. Them things is used for spyin! Ill bet you was spyinon us! Thats right, aint it? Confess it!
&nbsp I certainly wasnt spying on you.
&nbsp Give im a clip over the ear, Ernie said. Teach im not to lie to us.
&nbsp Ill do that in a minute, Raymond said. Im just workin meself up.
&nbsp Peter Watson considered the possibility of trying to escape. All he could do would be to turn and run, and that was pointless. Theyd catch him in seconds. And if he shouted for help, there was no one to hear him. All he could do, therefore, was to keep calm and try to talk his way out.
&nbsp Keep them ands up! Ernie barked, waving the barrel of the gun gently from side to side the way he had seen it done by gangsters on television. Go on, laddie, reach!
&nbsp Peter did as he was told.
&nbsp So oo was you spyin on? Raymond asked. Out with it!
&nbsp I was watching a green woodpecker, Peter said.
&nbsp A what?
&nbsp A male green woodpecker. He was tapping the trunk of that old dead tree, searching for grubs.
&nbsp Where is ee? Ernie snapped, raising his gun. Ill ave im!
&nbsp No, you wont, Peter said, looking at the string of tiny birds slung over Raymonds shoulder. He flew off the moment you shouted. Woodpeckers are extremely timid.
&nbsp What you watchin im for? Raymond asked suspiciously. Whats the point? Dont you ave nothin better to do?
&nbsp Its fun watching birds, Peter said. Its a lot more fun than shooting them.
&nbsp Why you cheeky little bleeder! Ernie cried. So you dont like us shootin birds, eh? Is that what youre sayin?
&nbsp I think its absolutely pointless.
&nbsp You dont like anything we do, isnt that right? Raymond said.
&nbsp Peter didnt answer.
&nbsp Well, let me tell you something, Raymond went on. We dont like anything you do either.
&nbsp Peters arms were beginning to ache. He decided to take a risk. Slowly, he lowered them to his sides.
&nbsp Up! yelled Ernie. Get em up!
&nbsp What if I refuse?
&nbsp Blimey! You got a ruddy nerve, aint you? Ernie said. Im tellin you for the last time, if you dont stick em up Ill pull the trigger!
&nbsp That would be a criminal act, Peter said. It would be a case for the police.
&nbsp And youd be a case of the ospital! Ernie said.
&nbsp Go ahead and shoot, Peter said. Then theyll send you to Borstal. Thats prison.
&nbsp He saw Ernie hesitate.
&nbsp Youre really askin for it, aint you? Raymond said.
&nbsp Im simply asking to be let alone, Peter said. I havent done you any harm.
&nbsp Youre a stuck-up little squirt, Ernie sain. Thats exactly what you are, a stuck-up little squirt.
&nbsp Raymond leaned over and whispered something in Ernies ear. Ernie listened intently. Then he slapped his thigh and said, I like it! Its a great idea!
&nbsp Ernie placed his gun on the ground and advanced upon the small boy. He grabbed him and threw him to the ground. Raymond took the roll of string from his pocket and cut off a length of it. Together, they forced the boys arms in front of him and tied his wrists together tight.
&nbsp Now the legs, Raymond said. Peter struggled and received a punch in the stomach. This winded him, and he lay still. Next, they tied his ankles together with more string. He was now trussed up like a chicken and completely helpless.
&nbsp Ernie picked up his gun, and then, with his other hand, he grabbed one of Peters arms. Raymond grabbed the other arm and together they began to drag the boy over the grass toward the railway line.
&nbsp Peter kept absolutely quiet. Whatever it was they were up to, talking to them wasnt going to help matters.
&nbsp They dragged their victim down the enbankment and on to the railway tracks themselves. Then one took the arms and the other the feet and they lifted him up and laid him down again lengthwise right between two rails.
&nbsp Youre mad! Peter said. You cant do this!
&nbsp Oo says we cant? This is just a little lesson were teachin you not to be cheeky.
&nbsp More string, Ernie said.
&nbsp Raymond produced the ball of string, and the two larger boys now proceeded to tie their victim down in such a way that he couldnt wriggle away from between the rails. They did this by looping string around each of his arms and then threading the string inder the rails on either side. They did the same with his middle body and his ankles.When they had finished, Peter Watson was strung down helpless and virtually immobile between the rails. The only parts of his body he could move to any extent were his head and feet.
&nbsp Ernie and Raymond stepped back to survey their handiwork. We done a nice job, Ernie said.
&nbsp Theres trains every arf our on this line, Raymond said. We aint gonna ave long to wait.
&nbsp This is murder! crie the small boy lying between the rails.
&nbsp No it aint, Raymond told him. It aint anything of the sort.
&nbsp Let me go! Please let me go! Ill be killed if a train comes along!
&nbsp If you are killed, sonny boy, Ernie said, itll be your own ruddy fault and Ill tell you why. Because if you lift your ead up like youre doin now, then youve ad it, chum! You keep down flat and you might just possibly get away with it. On the other and, you might not because I aint exactly sure ow much clearance them trainsve got underneath. You appen to know, Raymond, ow much clearance them trains got underneath?
&nbsp Very little, Raymond said. Theyre built ever so close to the ground.
&nbsp Might be enough and it might not, Ernie said.
&nbsp Lets put it this way, Raymond said. Itd probably just about be enough for an ordinary person like me or you, Ernie. But Mister Watson ere Im not so sure about and Ill tell you why.
&nbsp Tell me, said Ernie, egging him on.
&nbsp Mister Watson eres got an extra big head, thats why. Ees so flippin big-eaded I personally think the bottom bit of the trains gonna scrape im whatever appens. Im not sayin its goin to take is ead off, mind you. In fact Im pretty sure it aint goin to do that. But its goin to give is face a good old scrapin over. You can be quite sure of that.
&nbsp I think youre right, Ernie said.
&nbsp It dont do, Raymond said, to ave a great big swollen ead full of brains if youre lyin on th railway tracks with a train comin toward you. Thats right, aint it, Ernie?
&nbsp Thats right, Ernie said.
&nbsp The two bigger boys climbed back up the embankment and sat on the grass behind some bushes. Ernie produced a pack of cigarettes, and they both lit up.
&nbsp Peter Watson, lying helpless between the rails, realized now that they were not going to release him. These were dangerous, crazy boys. They lived for the moment and never considered the consequences. I must try to keep calm and think, Peter told himself. He lay there, quite still, weighing his chances. His chances were good. The highest part of him was his head and the highest part of his head was his nose. He estimated the end of his nose was sticking up about four inches above the rails. Was that too much? He wasnt quite sure what clearance these modern diesels had above the ground. It certainly wasnt very much. The back of his head was resting upon loose gravel in between two sleepers. He must try to burrow down a little into the gravel. So he began to wriggle his head from side to side, pushing the gravel away and gradually making for himself a small indentation, a hole in the gravel. In the end, he reckoned he had lowered his head an extra two inches. That would do for the head. But what about the feet? They were sticking up, too. He took care of the by swinging the two tied-together feet over to one side so that they lay almost flat.
&nbsp He waited for the train to come.
&nbsp Would the driver see him? It was very unlikely, for this was the main line, London, Doncaster, York, Newcastle and Scotland, and they used huge long engines in which the driver sat in a cab way back and kept an eye open only for the signals. Along this stretch of track they traveled around eighty miles and hour. Peter knew that. He had sat on the bank many times watching them When he was younger, he used to keep a record of their numbers in a little book, and sometimes the engines had names written on their sides in gold letters.
&nbsp Either way, he told himself, it was going to be a terrifying business. The noise would be deafening, and the swish of the eighty-mile-an-hour wind wouldnt be much fun either. He wondered for a moment whether there would be any kind of vacuum created underneath the train as it rushed over him, sucking him upward. There might well be. So whatever happened, he must concentrate everything upon pressing his entire body against the ground. Dont go limp. Keep stiff and tense and press down into the ground.
&nbsp Howre you doin, ratface? one of them called out to him from the bushes above. Whats it like, waitin for the execution?
&nbsp He decided not to answer. He watched the blue sky above his head where a single huge cumulus cloud was drifting slowly from left to right. And to keep his mind off the thing that was going to happen soon, he played a game that his father had taught him long ago on a hot summers day when they were lying on their backs in the grass above the cliffs at Beachy Head. The game was to look for strange faces in the folds and shadows and billows of a cumulus cloud. If you looked hard enough, his father had said, you would always find a face of some sort up there. Peter let his eyes travel slowly over the cloud. In one place, he found a one-eyed man with a beard. In another, there was a long-chinned laughing witch. An airplane came across the cloud traveling from east to west. It was a small high-winged monoplane with a red fuselage. An old Piper Cub, he thought it was. He watched it until it disappeared.
&nbsp And then, quite suddenly, he heard a curious little vibrating sound coming from the rails on either side of him. It was very soft, this sound, scarcely audible, a tiny little humming, thrumming whisper that seemed to be coming along the rails from far away.
&nbsp Thats a train, he told himself.
&nbsp The vibrating along the rails grew louder, then louder still. He raised his head and looked down the long and absolutely straight railway track that stretched away for a mile or more in the distance. It was then that he saw the train. At first it was only a speck, a faraway black dot, but in those few seconds that he kept his head raised, the dot grew bigger and bigger, and it began to take shape, and soon it was no longer a dot but the big, square, blunt front-end of a diesel express. Peter dropped his head and pressed it down hard into the small hole he had dug for it in the gravel. He swung his feet over to one side. He shut his eyes tight and tried to sink his body into the ground.
&nbsp The train came over him like an explosion. It was as though a gun had gone off in his head. And with the explosion came a tearing, screaming wind that was like a hurricane blowing down his nostrils and into his lungs. The noise was shattering. The wind choked him. He felt as if he were being eaten alive and swallowed up in the belly of a screaming murderous monster.
&nbsp And then it was over. The train had gone. Peter opened his eyes and saw the blue sky and the big white cloud still drifting overhead. It was all over now and he had done it. He had survived.
&nbsp It missed im, said a voice.
&nbsp What a pity, said another voice.
&nbsp He glanced sideways and saw the two large louts standing over him.
&nbsp Cut im loose, Ernie said.
&nbsp Raymond cut the strings binding him to the rails on either side.
&nbsp Undo is feet so ee can walk, but keep is ands tied, Ernie said.
&nbsp Raymond cut the string around his ankles.
&nbsp Get up, Ernie said.
&nbsp Peter got to his feet.
&nbsp What about them rabbits? Raymond asked. I thought we was goin to try for a few rabbits?
&nbsp Plenty of time for that, Ernie answered. I just thought wed push the little bleeder into the lake on the way.
&nbsp Good, Raymond said. Cool im down.
&nbsp Youve had your fun, Peter Watson said. Why dont you let me go now?
&nbsp Because youre a prisoner, Ernie said. And you aint just no ordinary prisoner neither. Youre a spy. And you know what appens to spies when they get caught, dont you? They get put up against the wall and shot.
&nbsp Peter didnt say any more after that. There was no point at all in provoking these two. The less he said to them and the less he resisted them, the more chance he would have of escaping injury. He had no doubt whatsoever that in their present mood they were capable of doing him quite serious bodily harm. He knew for a fact that Ernie had once broken little Wallys Simpsons arm after school, and Wallys parents had gone to the police. He had also heard Raymond boasting about what he called putting the boot in at the soccer matches they went to. This, he understood, meant kicking someone in the face or body when he was lying on the ground. They were hooligans, these two, and from what Peter read in his fathers newspaper nearly every day, they were not by any means on their own. It seemed the whole country was full of hooligans. They wrecked the interiors of trains, they fought pitched battles in the streets with knives and bicycle chains and metal clubs, they attacked pedestrians, especially other young boys walking alone, and they smashed up roadside cafs. Ernie and Raymond, though perhaps not quite yet fully qualified hooligans, were most definitely on their way.
&nbsp Therefore, Peter told himself, he must continue to be passive. Dont insult them. Do not aggravate them in any way. And above all, do not try to take them on physically. Then, hopefully, in the end, they might become bored with this nasty little game and go off to shoot rabbits.
&nbsp The two larger boys had each taken hold of one of Peters arms and they were marching him across the next field toward the lake. The prisoners wrists were still tied together in front of him. Ernie carried the gun in his spare hand. Raymond carried the binoculars he had taken from Peter. They came to the lake.
&nbsp The lake was beautiful on this golden May morning. It was a long and fairly narrow lake with tall willow trees growing here and there along its banks. In the middle, the water was clear and clean, but nearer to the land there was a forest of reeds and bulrushes.
&nbsp Ernie and Raymond marched their prisoner to the edge of the lake, and there they stopped.
&nbsp Now then, Ernie said. What I suggest is this. You take is arms and I take is legs and well swing the little perisher one-two-three as far out as we can into them nice muddy reeds. Ows that?
&nbsp I like it, Raymond said. And leave is ands tied together, right?
&nbsp Right, Ernie said. Ows that with you, snotnose?
&nbsp If thats what youre going to do, I cant very well stop you, Peter said, trying to keep his voice cool and calm.
&nbsp Just you try and stop us, Ernie said, grinning, and then see what appens to you.
&nbsp One last question, Peter said. Did you ever take on somebody your own size?
&nbsp The moment he said it, he knew he had made a mistake. He saw the flush coming to Ernies cheeks, and there was a dangerous little spark dancing in his small black eyes.
&nbsp Luckily, at that very moment, Raymond saved the situation. Hey! Lookit that bird swimmin in the reeds over there! he shouted, pointing. Lets ave im!
&nbsp It was a mallard drake with a curvy spoon-shaped yellow beak and a head of emerald green with a white ring around its neck. Now those you really can eat, Raymond went on. Its a wild duck.
&nbsp Ill ave im! Ernie cried. He let go of the prisoners arm and lifted the gun to his shoulder.
&nbsp This is a bird sanctuary, Peter said.
&nbsp A what? Ernie asked, lowering the gun.
&nbsp Nobody shoots birds here. Its strictly forbidden.
&nbsp Oo says its forbidden?
&nbsp The owner, Mr. Douglas Highton.
&nbsp You must be joking, Ernie said and he raised the gun again. He shot. The duck crumpled in the water.
&nbsp Go get im, Ernie said to Peter. Cut is ands free, Raymond, cause then ee can be our flippin gundog and fetch the birds after we shoot em.
&nbsp Raymond took out his knife and cut the string binding the small boys wrists.
&nbsp Go on! Ernie snapped. Go get im!
&nbsp The killing of the beautiful duck had disturbed Peter very much. I refuse, he said.
&nbsp Ernie hit him across the face hard with his open hand. Peter didnt fall down, but a small trickle of blood began running out of one nostril.
&nbsp You dirty little perisher! Ernie said. You just try refusin me one more time and Im goin to make you a promise. And the promise is like this. You refuse me just one more time and Im goin to knock out every single one of them shiny white front teeth of yours, top and bottom. You unnerstand that?
&nbsp Peter said nothing.
&nbsp Answer me! Ernie barked. Do you unnerstand that?
&nbsp Yes, Peter said quietly. I understand.
&nbsp Get on with it, then! Ernie shouted.
&nbsp Peter walked down the bank, into the muddy water, through the reeds, and picked up the duck. He brought it back, and Raymond took it from him and tied string around its legs.
&nbsp Now we got a retriever dog with us, lets see if we cant get us a few more of them ducks, Ernie said. He strolled along the bank, gun in hand, searching the reeds. Suddenly he stopped. He crouched. He put a finger to his lips and said, Sshh!
&nbsp Raymond went over to join him. Peter stood a few yards away, his trousers covered with mud up to the knees.
&nbsp Lookit in there! Ernie whispered, pointing into a dense patch of bulrushes. Dyou see what I see?
&nbsp Holy cats! cried Raymond. What a beauty!
&nbsp Peter, peering from a little farther away into the rushes, saw at once what they were looking at. It was a swan, a magnificent white swan sitting serenely on her nest. The nest itself was a huge pile of reeds and rushes that rose up about two feet above the waterline, and upon the top of all this, the swan was sitting like a great white lady of the lake. Her head was turned toward the boys on the bank, alert and watchful.
&nbsp Ow about that? Ernie said. Thats bettern ducks, aint it?
&nbsp You think you can get er? Raymond asked.
&nbsp Of course I can get er. Ill drill a ole right through er noggin!
&nbsp Peter felt a wild rage beginning to build up inside him. He walked up to the two bigger boys. I wouldnt shoot that swan if I were you, he said trying to keep his voice calm. Swans are the most protected birds in England.
&nbsp And whats that got to do with it? Ernie asked him, sneering.
&nbsp And Ill tell you something else, Peter went on, throwing all caution away. Nobody shoots a bird sitting on its nest. Absolutely nobody! She may even have cygnets under her! You just cant do it!
&nbsp Oo says we cant? Raymond asked, sneering. Mister bleedin snottynose Peter Watson, is that the one oo says it?
&nbsp The whole country says it, Peter answered. The law says it and the police say it and everyone says it!
&nbsp I dont say it! Ernie said, raising his gun.
&nbsp Dont! screamed Peter. Please dont!
&nbsp Crack! The gun went off. The bullet hit the swan right in the middle of her elegant head and the long white neck collapsed onto the side of the nest.
&nbsp Got im! cried Ernie.
&nbsp Hot shot! shouted Raymond.
&nbsp Ernie turned to Peter, who was standing small and white-faced and absolutely rigid. Now go get im, he ordered.
&nbsp Once again, Peter didnt move.
&nbsp Ernie came up close to the smaller boy and bent down and stuck his face right up to Peters. Im tellin you for the last time, he said, soft and dangerous. Go get im!
&nbsp Tears were running down Peters 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 center of the nest.
&nbsp Any eggs? Ernie shouted from the bank.
&nbsp 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.
&nbsp 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 now blazing with fury. That was a filthy thing to do! he shouted. It was a stupid, pointless act of vandalism! Youre a couple of ignorant idiots! Its you who ought to be dead instead of the swan! Youre not fit to be alive!
&nbsp 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.
&nbsp Ernie didnt 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.
&nbsp I like swans and I hate you! Peter cried.
&nbsp 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?
&nbsp Thats a stupid question! Peter shouted.
&nbsp Ee needs a clip over the ear-ole, Raymond said.
&nbsp Wait, Ernie said. Im 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 youd be appy. Right?
&nbsp Thats another stupid question! Peter cried out. Who dyou think you are?
&nbsp Ill tell you oo I am, Ernie said. Im a magic man, thats oo I am. And just to make you appy and contented, I am about to do a magic trick thatll make this dead swan come alive and go flyin all over the sky once again.
&nbsp Rubbish! Peter said. Im going. He turned and started to walk away.
&nbsp Grab im! Ernie said.
&nbsp Raymond grabbed him.
&nbsp Leave me alone! Peter cried out.
&nbsp Raymond slapped him on the cheek, hard. Now, now, he said. Dont fight with auntie, not unless you want to get urt.
&nbsp Gimme your knife, Ernie said, holding out his hand. Raymond gave him his knife.
&nbsp Ernie knelt down beside the dead swan and stretched out one of its enormous wings. Watch this, he said.
&nbsp Whats the big idea? Raymond asked.
&nbsp Wait and see, Ernie said. And now, using the knife, he proceeded to sever the great white wing from the swans 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.
&nbsp Ernie turned the swan over and severed the other wing.
&nbsp String, he said, holding out his hand to Raymond.
&nbsp Raymond, who was grasping Peter by the arm, was watching, fascinated. Whered you learn ow to butcher up a bird like that? he asked.
&nbsp With chickens, Ernie said. We used to nick chickens from up at Stevens Farm and cut em up into chicken parts and sell em to a shop in Aylesbury. Gimme the string.
&nbsp Raymond gave him the ball of string. Ernie cut off six pieces, each about a yard long.
&nbsp There are a series of strong bones running along the top edge of a swans 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.
&nbsp Youre absolutely mad! the smaller boy shouted. Youre demented!
&nbsp Make im stick it out, Ernie said to Raymond.
&nbsp Raymond held up a clenched fist in front of Peters face and dabbed it gently against his nose. You see this, he said. Well, Im goin to smash you right in the kisser with it unless you do exactly as youre told, see? Now, stick out your arm, theres a good little boy.
&nbsp Peter felt his resistance collapsing. He couldnt 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 the 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.
&nbsp Ernie then proceeded to tie the six string-ends one by one to Peters arm, and when he had finished, the white wing of the swan was securely attached along the entire length of the arm itself.
&nbsp Ows that, eh? Ernie said, stepping back and surveying his work.
&nbsp Now the other one, Raymond said, catching on to what Ernie was doing. You cant expect im to go flyin round the sky with only one wing, can you?
&nbsp 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. Lets ave the other arm, he said.
&nbsp Peter, feeling sick and ridiculous, held out his other arm. Ernie strapped the wing tightly along the length of it.
&nbsp 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! Didnt I tell you I was a magic man? Didnt 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? Didnt I tell you that?
&nbsp 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.
&nbsp Swans dont talk, Ernie said. Keep your flippin beak shut! And save your energy, laddie, because youre 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!
&nbsp 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.
&nbsp And now the magic swan is goin to show us a bit of magic flyin, Ernie announced. So what youre goin to do, Mister Swan, is to climb up to the very top of this tree, and when you get there youre goin to spread out your wings like a good clever little swanee-swan-swan and youre goin to take off!
&nbsp Fantastic! cried Raymond. Terrific! I like it very much!
&nbsp So do I, Ernie said. Because now were goin to find out just exactly ow clever this clever little swanee-swan-swan really is. Ees terribly clever at school, we all know that, and ees top of the class and everything else thats lovely, but lets see just exactly ow clever ee is when ees at the top of the tree! Right, Mister Swan? He gave Peter a push toward the tree.
&nbsp How much farther could this madness go? Peter wondered. He was beginning to feel a little mad himself, as though nothing was real anymore 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 climb 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.
&nbsp 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 didnt 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 wasnt 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.
&nbsp Higher! shouted Ernies voice. Keep goin!
&nbsp 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 persons wrist, and this particular branch reached far out over the lake and then curved gracefully downward. All the branches above him were thin and whippy, but the one he was holding onto 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 couldnt see the boys. They were no longer standing at the base of the tree. Was it possible they had gone away at last?
&nbsp All right, Mister Swan! came the dreaded voice of Ernie. Now listen carefully!
&nbsp The two of them had walked some distance away 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. The gave him almost no cover at all.
&nbsp Listen carefully, Mister Swan! the voice was shouting. Start walking out along that branch youre standin on! Keep goin till youre right over the nice muddy water! Then you take off!
&nbsp Peter didnt move. He was fifty feet above them now and they werent 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, looking up at him.
&nbsp All right then, Mister Swan! came Ernies voice again. Im gonna count to ten, right? And if you aint spread them wings and flown away by then, Im gonna shoot you down instead with this little gun! And thatll make two swans Ive knocked off today instead of one! So here we go, Mister Swan! One...two...three...four...five...six...
&nbsp Peter remained still. Nothing would make him move from now on.
&nbsp Seven...eight...nine...ten!
&nbsp Peter saw the gun coming up to the shoulder. It was pointing straight at him. Then he heard the crack of the rifle and the zip of the bullet as it whistled past his head. It was a frightening thing. But he still didnt move. He could see Ernie loading the gun with another bullet.
&nbsp Last chance! yelled Ernie. The next ones gonna get you!
&nbsp Peter stayed put. He waited. He watched the boy who was standing among the buttercups in the meadow far below with the other boy beside him. The gun came up once again to the shoulder.
&nbsp This time he heard the crack and at the same instant the bullet hit him in the thigh. There was no pain, but the force of it was devastating. It was as though someone had whacked him on the leg with a sledgehammer, and it knocked both feet off the branch he was standing on. He scrabbled with his hands to hold on. The small branch he was holding onto bent over and split.
&nbsp Some people, when they have taken too much and have been driven beyond the point of endurance, simply crumple and give up. There are others, though they are not many, who will for some reason always be unconquerable. You meet them in time of war and also in time of peace. They have an indomitable spirit and nothing, neither pain nor torture nor threat of death, will cause them to give up.
&nbsp Peter Watson was one of these. And as he fought and scrabbled to prevent himself from falling out of the top of the tree, it came to him suddenly that he was going to win. He looked up and he saw a light shining over the waters of the lake that was of such brilliance and beauty that he was unable to look away. The light was beckoning him, drawing him on, and he dove toward the light and spread his wings.

* * *

&nbsp Three different people reported seeing a great white swan circling over the village that morning: a schoolteacher called Emily Mead, a man who was replacing some tiles on the roof of the chemists shop whose name was William Eyles, and a boy called John Underwood who was flying his model airplane in a nearby field.
&nbsp And that morning, Mrs. Watson, who was washing some dishes in her kitchen sink, happened to glance up through the window at the exact moment when something huge and white came flopping down onto the lawn in her back garden. She rushed outside and sank down on her knees beside the small crumpled figure of her son. Oh, my darling! she cried, near to hysterics and hardly believing what she saw. My darling boy! What happened to you?
&nbsp My leg hurts, Peter said, opening his eyes. Then he fainted.
&nbsp Its bleeding! she cried, and she picked him up and carried him inside. Quickly she phoned for the doctor and the ambulance. And while she was waiting for help to come, she fetched a pair of scissors and began cutting the string that held the two great wings of the swan to her sons arms.

Now Recover...

Back to Topper
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Fun Long Story by Just About Everyone (literally)
Mariamne's Update on "Romeo & Juliet"
Fun Little Story by Lydia & Tokoth
A Story to Amuse You...and then read the sequel!

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I found this in one of my old "children's" books not too long ago. I say children in quotes because this story (actually the seven stories in this book) are not really suited to children. Anyway, the book is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl.

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Story about murder 1973

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The Murder of Dawn Lee Swan Magyar occurred on January 27, 1973. She had been abducted, raped, and shot three times. The case was resolved 28 years after her body was found.

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RS Package ID# 017RDCJ

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LFoA Winter Newsletter

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April 2012

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We'd like to spotlight one of our patients at Darlington. Lloyd M. has no Listening Friend, but we believe everyone deserves a chance to have their story told. Lloyd was born in 1941 in New York....