“So I’ll thank you to mind yer Ps and Qs, if it doesn’t inconvenience you terribly, mad-moi-zelle.”

“Yes, ma’am.” That’s what she likes to hear when she’s giving me a talking-to.

“That’s more like it.” She does her head-tilty smile like she’s satisfied. “So, Calvin, eh? Dinner for two?” See, I usually get the smallest chicken in the, like, herd, or whatever you call it when it’s chickens. “Jason stay over?”

“My parents are coming for me today.”

“Tap my feet and call me Bojangles! They called!”

“Well, no. That’s why I know they’re coming today. I mean, if they haven’t called that means they’re just going to rock up, like a surprise. I mean, if they get the late boat out to Appledore, they could probably . . .”

She does a squint-frown; she doesn’t understand. And something in her expression makes what I was saying stop making sense to me too.

“It’s my birthday. I’m eighteen.”

Rose gives a big “aww” and hugs me, which sends loads of Calvin’s feathers flying. And then it looks like she wishes she didn’t get up so fast and she has to grab the back of the bench and lower herself back down.

“You doing anything nice?”

“I made a cake.”

“And you didn’t bring me any?”

“I’m a growing girl.”

“Woman. That’s what you say now. Ya hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I pull the last of Calvin’s feathers off his wings and turn him around and around, tugging off the stragglers.

“Right!” and she slaps her hand down on the counter in her yee-haw way. “What d’you say I take you out to the Relic tonight?”

“The Relic? Will they even let me in? Nick would go apeshit.”

“You leave that to ol’ Rose.” She goes on, but now she sounds a little unsure, like she’s speaking a foreign language. “Bring yer folks.”

“Yeah. I will. Sounds good.”

All naked like this, Calvin just seems like chicken as opposed to a chicken—a real animal with a personality and shit. Rose looks him over and smiles at my work. I follow her inside and into her kitchen, feeling eager to show Rose that I know what to do next. I slice an opening midway between the thighs, reach in and pull out his guts, cut the heart away from the lungs, remove the kidneys and the liver, discard the intestines and stomach into the white plastic bin. The organ meat goes into a little plastic bag and back down into the cavity. I wrap the chicken up in paper, wash my hands, give the countertop a good scrub, and remember to say thank you to Rose.