Read by Sarah Barlex (final story in podcast, click here to play)
Am I nervous? Of course. Am I scared? Absolutely. This place has been my life. It’s safe. There’s space to run, and a warm bed at night. I’ve got my friends. And Mr and Mrs Pickford, who look after us all, and are lovely. And there’s lots and lots of food!
Fraser, who eats more than any of us, says it’s the best we’ve ever had.
Terry, who can be difficult, says “Shut up, it’s all we’ve ever had.”
Fraser asks Terry when he’s going to start being nice.
Terry says, “When you stop talking out of your bum-hole.”
She has news.
“Can you believe it?” she exclaims. “We’re leaving! We’ll be gone by Christmas!”
“Wow!” says Fraser.
“Oh crap,” says Terry.
*
That evening, we gather in the barn, all four hundred of us, to hear the details.
“You know how much Mr and Mrs Pickford love us,” begins Felicity.
We nod and chunter in agreement.
“How they feed us and protect us,” she continues. “And keep us safe from foxes? Well, it turns out they love us so much they’ve found each and every one of us a new home and family.”
Pandemonium. Everyone starts shouting, “What? What? What?” at the top of their voices, and at each other, and all at the same time.
“How do you know?” someone asks when the hubbub dies down.
Felicity says she heard Mr and Mrs Pickford talking near the water trough.
“Are we all going?” asks someone else.
“All of us,” Felicity confirms. “And that’s no surprise. Don’t let this go to your heads, but I heard Mrs Pickford say we’re the best of the very best. The highest possible quality.”
Fraser asks, “Will we get Christmas presents?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I hope I get a bicycle!” someone shouts.
“You’ll have to discuss that with your new family,” Felicity chuckles.
“Will they like us?” I ask. “Will they love us?”
“Yes,” says Felicity. “Mr Pickford said they can’t wait to get their hands on us!”
“I bet they can’t,” mutters Terry, but not in a happy way.
*
Terry might be depressed. Every morning, while the rest of us chatter excitedly and nibble apples, he takes himself off to the far side of the big playing field and scratches around by the fence. He looks over the valley, towards the woods on the hill on the other side.
“Think nice thoughts,” I say when I go to see him. “What would you like for Christmas?”
“Equality,” he replies. “World peace.”
“I’d like a colouring book!” I say cheerfully. I’m trying to think nice thoughts too.
Fraser is a nice thought. I really like him. I’m sad he and I are probably going to different families and I worry I won’t see him again.
I feel low, but when I tell Felicity she says, “Sure. Whatever,” which isn’t as supportive as I hoped, and makes me feel worse.
But then Mrs Pickford appears at the gate and shouts, “Lunchtime, boys and girls!” and we all rush up to her. It’s broccoli and kale which are my favourites and for a little while I forget about Fraser.
Terry wanders over. Felicity advises him to eat up his broccoli and kale.
“You need to be big and healthy for your new family!” she tells him.
“Do I though?” he asks. “Do I?”
I tell Felicity Terry might be depressed. Felicity says life is what you make it, and that Terry needs to sort himself out. Fraser, who’s come for a chat, says he’s more than happy to go over and sort Terry out himself.
Felicity jiggles up and down a bit and says, “Oh Fraser!”
*
That night it’s cold in the barn, but Felicity cheers us up by telling us what else she’s found out from Mr Pickford.
“We’re free range!” she announces. “Who knew?”
She says free range is a term that’s bandied about quite liberally. But we’re proper free range, and that makes us special.
Also, delivery is free within a ten-mile radius.
“Free range and free delivery!” Felicity exclaims. “Just imagine!”
Terry says, “Christ on a bike,” which is a phrase I’m not familiar with.
*
I haven’t given up on Terry. I still like him. But, as Felicity says, he’s not making it easy.
For a start, I hardly see him.
Sometimes, he’s strutting along the fence at the far side of the playing field. Sometimes, he’s scratching at the dirt floor in the barn.
I’m not spying on him. It’s just that I haven’t got much else to do. Fraser and Felicity are an item. Fraser brings her apples and she makes a funny purring noise. I feel left out.
There’s a big tree near the water trough and I see Terry looking up into its branches.
I say, “What are you up to?”
He looks as if he wants to say something important, but at the same time doesn’t. He winks at me with both eyelids, top and bottom.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asks.
“Not really,” I say.
“Oh,” he says. “OK.”
*
Felicity has more information. It’s early afternoon and we’re having fun in the orchard when she gathers us around.
“I’ve found out a bit more about what happens when we leave here,” she says.
This is interesting. I can’t be the only one who’s curious.
“Apparently, we’re going to be stunned.”
“Fantastic!” someone shouts. “What’s that?”
Felicity says it’s something that happens between leaving here and joining a new family.
“You’re stunned!” she explains. “The whole thing is stunning!”
“I’m stunned already,” Fraser admits.
Felicity says that after the stunning something else happens, although she doesn’t know what because she couldn’t hear exactly what Mrs Pickford was saying.
“But after that,” Felicity says. “We’re dressed.”
“In what?” someone asks.
“Something lovely,” Felicity replies.
“Will it be Christmassy?” someone else wants to know.
“It will be Christmassy,” Felicity confirms.
Terry is by the fence. I tell him what Felicity has said. He makes me repeat it, and repeat it again. Then he cocks his head to one side and opens his mouth.
I say, “I can see you’re stunned too!”
“Ah, gizzards,” he says finally. “This is terrifying.”
*
Terry is in trouble. Mrs Pickford left the gate open when she came with our lunch and Terry ran away. Luckily, Mr Pickford brought him back. Mr and Mrs Pickford seem relieved rather than cross, so Terry isn’t in trouble with them. But he is in trouble with Felicity.
In the barn, she and Fraser make him sit on a feed box while she explains what he did.
“I’m not angry,” she says gently. “I’m disappointed and worried. Terry, you could have been lost forever!”
Fraser shakes his head.
Terry makes a little snorting noise in his nostrils.
It’s a shame this had to happen now, Felicity says, because she has more exciting news.
“It looks as if we’ll be setting off to see our new families by Friday,” she announces.
“That’s terrifically exciting!” says Fraser. “What day is it now?”
“I have no idea,” says Felicity.
Terry is making a choking noise.
“You’re all mad,” he says quietly.
*
Terry mopes in the barn. I bring him half an apple and some oatmeal but he won’t eat it.
“I’m on hunger strike,” he says.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means Felicity’s deranged and she’s going to get us killed,” he replies.
That sounds rather dramatic, I tell him. Is he sure?
Later, he goes for a walk and I see him by the fence on the far side of the playing field. He’s staring at the wood on the hill across the valley again.
“I think he’s embarrassed,” I tell Fraser, when we’re all settling down for the night.
“He ruddy well should be,” says Fraser.
*
Terry is in trouble again.
Fraser finds him digging a hole in the barn floor. He’s got quite far. Only his head is showing when Fraser starts to drag him out. Easily, as it happens, because Fraser has been eating broccoli and kale and Terry hasn’t been eating anything at all.
Terry slumps on the floor while Felicity tells him off, again.
“You’re spoiling it for the rest of us,” she scolds.
“How?” he asks weakly.
I wonder that too. Is it because Felicity likes people to do what she tells them?
Terry finds enough strength to tell Felicity to sod off.
*
In the morning, a lorry arrives. On the side, it has a picture of Felicity, or someone who looks like her.
In the barn, Felicity says, “How festive!”
Fraser says, “Felicity, dear, tell us the latest.”
“Well,” says Felicity. “Keep your claws on the floor, but apparently we’re pleasantly gamey with a unique depth of flavour.”
Someone asks, “What does that mean?” but either Felicity doesn’t hear or ignores the question.
The barn door swings open. Outside, it’s snowing. Mrs Pickford appears and says, “Come on, boys and girls. Time to go.”
And Felicity says excitedly, “This is it! This is actually it!”
Soon, we’re all in the yard and someone has lowered a ramp from the back of the lorry and Mr and Mrs Pickford are ushering us up it.
Fraser is at the front of the crowd. I’m at the back with Felicity.
“Wait!” Felicity shouts, suddenly. “Where’s Terry?”
“What?” Fraser shouts back, and begins to push his way through the crowd.
Felicity barks, “Split up! Find him!”
Fraser heads to the barn. Felicity heads to the water trough.
“He’s up that tree,” she snarls.
I head to the far side of the playing field. I think I know what I will find.
Terry is on his back, half under, half through the wire fence.
“Cock,” he mutters when he realises I’m there. His body seems to shrink and deflate, but not enough for him to squeeze under the fence and through to the other side.
“Yes,” he says. “I’m stuck. Yes, you’re going to fetch Miss Bossy and Mr Brains. Yes, I’m destined for the fun bus with the rest of you.”
He waggles his scaly toes.
“Alternatively, leave me here so a fox can chew my head off. Or my backside. It doesn’t really matter.”
Suddenly, it all makes sense.
“You’ve been digging this hole. That’s why you keep coming here.”
“Yes,” says Terry. “But not deep enough.”
“The hunger strike!”
“Not thin enough.”
“The hole in the floor in the barn!”
“Decoy.”
“What about the tree?”
“I just like trees.”
“Why don’t you get on Felicity’s lorry?” I ask.
“I think you know.”
He makes that snorting sound in his nostrils again.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know your name.”
“Fiona.”
“Look, Fiona. Do what you have to do but just do it. The suspense is killing me. As is this bit of wire pressing on my breastbone.”
“This wire?” I ask, lifting it up with my foot.
“Yes, that one.”
I lift it higher. Terry wriggles. Then he’s free on the other side of the fence. He shakes his feathers. He points a wing towards the woods across the valley.
“I’m going there,” he says. “I’ll get eaten by a fox, it’ll be my choice. Actually, it won’t, but I’ll go out with dignity. Actually, that’s not true either. Maybe it’s just the circle of life. Maybe I just don’t like Christmas, for obvious reasons.”
I hear myself say, “I’ll come with you.”
“What about the fox?” Terry asks. “What about Rhubarb and Custard back there?”
“Who?”
“You know … Sonny and Cher. Ross and Rachel. Kim and Kanye?”
I think I know who he means.
“Stuff them,” I say.
(c) Mark Barlex, 2022
Mark Barlex began writing fiction in 2021 after short courses at City, University of London. His stories have featured in Bandit Fiction, Flash Fiction North, Bath Flash Fiction, Your Fire Magazine, and Scribble. He lives in south London. This is his second story for Liars’ League.
Sarah Barlex is a member of the National Youth Theatre and a former member of the Group 64 youth theatre in Putney. She currently works as a nursery teacher, wrangling three-year-olds for a living, but also makes short films for her website barlexfilms.com. She lives in south London.
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