Free Trading Rosemary by Octavia Cade

soft walnut head, strangely solid under the spare down covering. Rescued from the jaws of her horrible, over-fed cat, and the nest too high to return to, too far out on the sea cliff, and Rosemary with no way of getting it back.
    So it was in the hot water cupboard, wrapped in a tea towel in an old ice-cream container. And Rosemary, sadistic with childish curiosity, a pendulum between her books and the cupboard, unable to leave it for ten minutes at a time, knowing her jack-in-the-box appearance was frightening it but unable to stay away. Was it thirsty, was it starving?
    Would it eat cat food and thrive, like a previous refugee had done, oblivious to the irony if not the cat, which shared its food and watched with gleaming eyes, ready for canapé, for vol-au-vent, for stuffed-plump gull dumpling. Would it eat, would it refuse? Would it die? Could she keep it alive and for herself, to sit on her shoulders and pick fish-bones from her hand?
    It would be wrong to let it go hungry, this gaping greedy baby fallen from the nest.
    Soft in her hands, the ridge of spine tender against her palm, head tilted backwards as she tried to prise open the tiny bill, hovering tweezers clogged with food, food smeared against the smile lines of the beak. The bird was rigid in her hands, staring, too scared to turn its head away, but Rosemary did not return it to the warm safety of the cupboard.
    Was it thirsty, was it starving?
Eat this, little birdie, it’s good for you. Yum, yum.
    The pleasure and relief when she was able to force lumps down its throat.
You’ll feel better with something in your stomach, birdie.
The horror at its choking, the harsh breaths, the panic in the small feathered face, in the small black eyes. Open up, down go the silver tweezers! Quick, pull it out—before it dies in her hands, terrified, stuffed from one end to another and wondering what it had done to deserve this death, too petrified to move as more food was stuffed down its throat. Too petrified to turn its head away, to live.
    The shame of it stiff in her hands, suffocated by fear and love and sardines. Why did it not swallow, stupid thing? Why did it not turn its head?
    Why could she have not left it safe in the cupboard, to recover in its own time? Rosemary wept guilty tears, threw it in the marram grass where no one would see the corpse. Threw it where even the cat couldn’t find it, the bloody beastly cat who she loved better than birds. The cat who
plop-sucked
his way across the damp sands, shaking miserable feet, shaking wind-shuffled fur and glaring.
    Sea birds, land birds. Short, flat-beaked birds; long, red-footed sharp-beaked birds. He would bring them home for Rosemary to cure or kill, to drown in warm water, to stuff to death. Birds that soared on still warm air; island birds casting shadows on the water. He had no sportsmanship; would climb trees at night, slinking sleeping birds from the nest, scattering feathers across Rosemary’s carpet. Feathers, and a tiny remnant claw. A reminder that he could have left the entire corpse, had he wanted to.
    Rosemary did not want him to. It was all right with small birds, common birds. Who would miss a sparrow? But the protected penguin, clumsy and clambering onto the beach at dusk, would get them both into trouble. A fine for Rosemary, and a site two foot under for naughty puss. The Department of Conservation didn’t joke about bird catching. It was unaccountable—they cared more for the live creature than the memory of it, the warm salt smell half smothered with feathers, the graven coin. No vision whatsoever. Bound in the wheels of bureaucracy.
    Rosemary took the penguin, with pangs of guilt, half-suspecting the cat was laughing at her, knowing she would protect him and mocking her for it. He had dragged it home whole, telltale marks left in the sand. Rosemary went out and scuffed them, disguising the evidence; wrapped the bird in a pillowcase in panic, and shoved it into the freezer.
    “Just what