Free The Burying Beetle by Ann Kelley

changes shape rapidly, moving and growing or shrinking like a cloud of starlings when they are going to roost in the evening.
      Pop must have come very early for his breakfast. I put out a plate of old cat food last night in the dark and it was gone first thing. But he’s outside now waiting for more, or perhaps he’s just looking at us, maybe he’s studying us. He is so funny when he eats stale bread. He swallows it whole and it gets stuck halfway across his throat. You can see the shape of it inside his gullet.
    IT ’ S VERY STRANGE that people who write in the sand on our beach always write their message in the same place – just where we can see it clearly from the deck and with the letters so we can see them the right way up. I suppose it’s just far enough away from the steps and rocks down to the beach so they feel they’ve gone for a walk, or maybe they want us to read their messages. They don’t usually write anything exciting or interesting, though. Only stuff like Tracy loves Jason or Fuck off . One small fat boy, wearing a red cap and on his own, wrote Fatty, which was sad, I think. Someone wrote Happy Birthday but it wasn’t to me.
    I had a very plump friend once when I was little. She was called Beverley and she had a little sister called Denise, who was just as chubby, and they both wore their hair in plaits. Beverley was a terrible giggler and I once threw a game of Monopoly over her because she wouldn’t play properly and kept giggling. I hope she doesn’t grow up remembering me as the bad tempered girl with no sense of humour. If I’m famous before I die and she gets interviewed about me she’ll say how horrible I was and everyone will hate me. Thinking about it now, she was probably more of a Noughts and Crosses person than a Monopoly person.
    There’s a little plane that flies across the beach towards St Ives, sometimes, with a banner flying behind advertising various events and holiday entertainments – like Come to Flambards and Visit Paradise Park . It’s a complete waste of time trailing the ads across our beach – there are never more than a dozen people on it, if that. It’s the nearest thing you can get to wilderness, I should think, the view from our house. Just sand and cliffs and sky with the estuary and sand dunes and the lighthouse and bay and of course, the sea.
    It’s about as far as you can get from Camden Town. Not one crusty in sight, no sound even of traffic, no smell of joss sticks and no rubbish floating around in the air. Paradise, some people would think. If you like that sort of thing.
    I’d like to go to Paradise Park. They have lots of different species of birds there including eagles and parrots, and they have a breeding programme for rare birds, like the Cornish chough, which is like a crow with a red beak. I wonder, why did they nearly die out? And if they died out, where did people get the eggs to start off their reintroduction programme? And why is it pronounced chuff, and not chow? The English language is a very strange bird.
    The gulls here still call at night. As it gets dark – which is very late at the moment, about ten o’clock – they seem to fly towards St Ives, dozens of them, around the point towards the town, to roost on the roofs with their babies, I suppose. Maybe they call to each other so they don’t get lost. Here I am, stay close to me. Follow me, I know the way home.
    When we first arrived here in the spring, there were more bird sounds at night from the waders and estuary birds. I definitely heard curlews calling in the middle of the night.
    A mournful sound. No owls though.
    Mum is at work today so I have the house to myself. She looked very smart this morning, in a black linen skirt and a stretchy bright pink top. I thought the neckline was rather low, but she said, ‘If you’ve Got it, Flaunt it.’ She enjoys meeting people and seeing houses, but she hasn’t seen anything suitable for us yet.
    I don’t even know if I want to