Lulabelle and the Scathing Fowel

Lulabelle and the Scathing Fowel –from the Scarfolk folks’ daily archive.

Lulabelle Scathing, age seven-ish (exact DOB unknown), is a child prodigy. In her early youth she bioengineered her pet woodlouse, Crunchy, into a fully grown armadillo. However her mother, Arachnia Featherstone Ambling Chough-Smythe, has wisely guided her into more lucrative pursuits, since there is no market for armadillos in Scarfolk County.  

Lulabelle is now a very young, though fully qualified geneticist and bioengineer, working on the genetic modification of her pet chickens to create larger, semi-predatory birds. In the absence of wolves and sabretooth cats which have not been seen for many years, Lulabelle’s chooks will be safely released into Scarfolk Forest to help to reduce the numbers of deer, woodpeckers, beavers, charcoal-burners, lumber-jacks and other vermin that damages the trees. 

Lulabelle’s chickens have been named Scathing Fowel, as a tribute to her father, wee Dougie Scathing, who vanished immediately after his daughter’s conception. Her mother, Arachnia, had declined to take Wee Dougie’s surname, as she felt her own name already included four of her other seven former-husbands/partners and to add another would be cumbersome. Each of her eight children carried their father’s name and that was memorial enough.

The photograph is Lulabelle's favourite, named Cockatrice, he is exploring the bottom of the garden. He will be father of the next generation of Scathing Fowel.

Once a sustainable population of Scathing Fowel has been established in Scarfolk Forest, Arachnia’s idea is to issue hunting licences to carefully selected gentlefolk, enabling them to shoot a prescribed number of Scathing fowel. As the fowel will be the top predator in the forest, their numbers will need to kept in balance or, having eaten everything else they would start on each other. 

Only trained markspersons will be allowed to hunt for Scathing Fowel as the birds become excessively dangerous when wounded and can take an adult human’s arm or head off with one bite. However less qualified persons may be employed as beaters or bait.

Arachnia has not yet broached the hunting idea with her daughter, as Lulabelle is inclined to being sentimental about her ferocious feathered fowel. And nobody would ever dare to suggest to Lulabelle that she has not spelled fowel correctly. For a start she is only seven and spelling is not her best subject, also she would set Cockatrice on any dissenters.

Noir Fiction - a Workshop

 I've joined another writers' group, the Shorelink Writers, who meet weekly on Monday nights, in school term times. Most group members agree to create and run a workshop for the whole group about once a term, I've just delivered my second workshop, inspired by some of the odd and slightly off-key place names in the local area, which I thought would suit a noir-style story. My local area happens to be Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea.

The workshop went down very well, almost every writer chose one of two names, Galley Hill and Goat Ledge. Galley Hill is obviously noir, but Goat Ledge? Of course, the thing with Goat Ledge is that everybody local knows the place. It's the name of a very popular beach café, and originally the name of the reefs of  somewhat treacherous rocks just off the beach, where historical goatherds would take their flocks to feast on the seaweed. 

This is the workshop I delivered:-

Noir Stories

I’ve watched a bit of Scandi Noir and got hooked on watching Shetland on TV, which is very noir. Noir is a category of crime fiction usually involving the police, think of the Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus stories, set in brooding Edinburgh. Maybe noir might even be funny, think of the creepy goings on in Royston Vasey!

 Noir isn’t a horror story, it’s all to do with the place and the mood, feeling dark, a bit threatening. It does seem to me that the place where the story is set plays a vital part in Noir Stories. They’re local stories about ordinary people, not usually involving royal palaces, long distance travel, desert Islands, etc.

Here are some very local place names which sound like they might have a noir story in them. You probably know most of these places. Choose one and write about what might happen there:-

Maze Hill    Pelham Beach    East Ascent    Galley Hill    Combe Haven    Ravenside    Conqueror Road

Bulverhythe    Goat Ledge    Horntye Park    Undercliff    South Saxons

 

Happy New Year 2024 - haiku

Happy New Year, dance

Sound all the trumpets in the world

and hope for peace