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morning till night. The big barn had been swiftly rebuilt as
the processing plant for the chickens. According to Rhona,
who had stood on a box on another box to peer in, it was all
conveyor belts and machinery for putting bits of chicken into
packets and stuff. First thing in the morning, once a week, the
trucks would arrive and be loaded up with packets of Busby s
free-range organic chicken thighs or breasts or drumsticks. It
made them all shiver a bit, knowing the chickens would go into
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the barn squawking and clucking and come out on a plastic
tray. The chickens didn t seem to mind though, and they had a
happy time scratching about in the yard and fields before they
disappeared.
You need to take your mind off Isla. Why don t you go for a
run? suggested Alastair one morning.
Heather looked at him in horror. A run? Her? But he was
right about one thing, she did need to distract herself. She got
up and went in search of Rhona.
Alastair reckons I should do something to take my mind off
Isla.
He s bright, that boy, said Rhona approvingly. You going
to go for a run?
What is it with you two and running? No, I want you to
teach me to read.
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Chapter 7
Rubbish Bags
& Fish and Chips
µ
Rhona had been reading for as long as she could remember.
Right from the moment she d first munched her way through
a catalog of tractor parts she d basically devoured anything she
could find. Magazines about fishing, letters, farming informa-
tion and other stuff. Even some pink magazines about prin-
cesses that Isla had given her. These days, though, Rhona s
reading material came from Mr. Busby s rubbish bin, so it was
mostly cereal boxes and plastic bags. That was fine, but it did
mean a lot of weird words like Weetabix and Costcutter, Kwik
Save and Cheerios.
Once Rhona had explained that Heather didn t have to eat
the words to read them, they got started. They began with the
alphabet A is for apple, B for barn, C for cornflakes and so on.
Once she d given her the basics, Rhona moved on to getting
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Heather to sound out the letters and trying to work out the
words with the help of pictures.
As the lessons went on, Rhona assured her she was mak-
ing steady progress, although Heather secretly told Alastair
she wasn t any good at reading and was only really carrying on
because Rhona seemed to be enjoying it so much. As far as she
could tell, reading wasn t something Duroc pigs were really cut
out for. And it wasn t stopping her thinking about Isla. Coco
Pops just reminded her of her friend s eyes. In fact, one morn-
ing Heather was feeling so much like not having a lesson that
when she heard Rhona calling her she scampered behind the
farmhouse and hid until her friend s voice had faded into the
distance and the lesson with it.
As she heaved a sigh of relief she looked around her and real-
ized that actually she was in rather an interesting spot, which
was home to a rather interesting smell. It seemed to be coming
from the large black bag that had been left by the bin. Thought-
fully she sat on her haunches, pointed her snout skyward, and
filled her nose with the smell. Definitely potato skins, old fish
bones, something spicy and milk that had gone sour. But there
was something else she couldn t place. Something intriguing.
What was it? Furtively she looked around and, seeing no one,
she gripped the bag in her teeth, swung it in the air and gave it
a few good kicks with her trotter until, like a birthday piñata, it
split open and poured its contents onto the ground.
Heather couldn t believe her eyes. For a good five minutes she
just sat on her haunches and gazed at the paradise before her.
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There were potato peelings, banana skins, Brussels sprouts, bits
of cheese, an apple core (Scotch Dumpling, a cooking apple that
cooks to a frothy purée with a good flavor), milk cartons, even an
old corncob. That was the mystery smell: corncob. She felt like
the luckiest pig in the whole world. A tear of happiness rolled
down her cheek, and then, as she was swallowing the saliva
that was threatening to flood her mouth, she saw it. Right at
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