His voice was firm whilst placing Rita's pet chicken across his knee, reciting "they're both friends and food."
Rita watched through an obscured vision as the neck of her favorite chicken was snapped.
She's only been living with her Grandfather for a few weeks with her mother and sister in Winchester. Acres of garden decorated with patches of vegetables and fragranced with flowers. they consumed everything but the pebbled path that led to her friends. Rita often heard the sound of trains passing through the fields behind the fence, but sadly too high for her 8 year old height to see. She"enjoyed the sound the chickens made" as the roaring engines spooked a choir of clucking.
Rita clenched her fists and shook her head as her Grandfather reached for the ill "croaking chicken". They tried drops of olive oil to soothe the sound but Rita knew all too well that "if it didn't get better, ring its neck." Although she cried as he carried the creature to the kitchen, her grief was brief as her stomach began to rumble with anticipation for chicken stew.
Rita, now 81, has always appreciated her Grandfather providing for her during the war when rations were scarce. She too has lived "self sufficiently" as a part time Librarian, and is determined her three daughters and grandchildren will continue to follow the same path. But so far no dead chickens.
Rita never went hungry and a new friend would always be waiting at the bottom of the garden.
