"Alright. You can look now."
Bates felt the scarf being unwrapped from around his head. He rubbed his hands over his eyes to remove any lingering fibres of wool, then looked down. That was a mistake. Immediately in front of him was a drop - over forty feet down, between buildings, to the moonlit cobblestones below. Instinctively, Bates took a step back.
Somebody grabbed him by the shoulder. "Nah then, you don't want to be doin' that, covey." It was Daniel, the leader of the Jack Street Crew. Daniel gave Bates a vulpine grin: all teeth and menace. "You want to be doin' this."
At these words a pair of boys - Bates recognised them as part of the Crew - emerged from the rooftop shadows and pulled an old plank from behind a chimney brace. The laid it down on the edge of the roof, then pushed it out so it formed a bridge from this building to the one opposite. The plank was narrow: a mere twelve inches wide across the fifteen foot gap. The two boys stood back.
"Well," Daniel continued, "if'n you want to be one of us, you have to make the crossing. 'Tain't nothin', is it?" The other boys nodded eagerly. "Course, if'n you don't, well then!"
Bates looked down at the plank. The moonlight made it difficult to see how sturdy it was, but he was sure that any piece of wood left up on these roofs would soon be rotten through. "Is it safe?" he asked.
"Safe as houses," said one of the boys.
"Leastways safe as that crib we cracked," said the other. They nudged each other and sniggered at their joke.
"And right now," Daniel said, "you got two ways down. One's over there." He pointed to the rooftop on the far side of the plank. "T'other?" Daniel reached behind Bates and gave him a shove. Bates staggered forward, then stopped as Daniel grabbed at his belt, stopping him falling into the alley below. "Whoops. Covey almost slipped."
"Alright." Bates pushed Daniel's hand away. "I'll cross." He stepped onto the plank bridge. It creaked and shifted on the wet bricks.
"Gorn!" Daniel shouted. "Get a move on!"
Bates edged further down the plank, so all his weight was being taken by the old wood. The plank bowed and creaked, and Bates teetered above the void and prayed to whichever gods might be watching.
"Two ways down, covey!"
Bates looked back and forth between his feet and the building opposite. Slowly, carefully, he edged his way out into the space above the void. The plank creaked, but held. Halfway across he stopped and, on an impulse, grinned back to Daniel. He was about to say something, when the wood beneath cracked and - !
