Pt 3

“Ready for a break?” Jenny’s dad grinned at her, spotting her lurking in the doorway and knowing how much she enjoyed watching him work. It was her ambition, he knew well, to follow him into the girl-butchering business when she was older and she was keen to learn from the master!

“Sure!” she grinned happily, setting the wad of leaflets down on the counter as she followed her dad and the young meat-girl out into the back. “Should I put an overall on?”

“Probably a good idea.” Her dad agreed. “You won’t have to worry about getting messy then and you can go straight back outside when we’re done.” While her dad talked to the young girl they were about to butcher and talked her through what would happen, the way a dentist might before giving a young child a filling, Jenny ripped open a packet and pulled out one of the disposable overalls in her size that her dad had ordered for just such an occasion. It was made of light, paper-ish fabric and designed for single use. It was similar to the kind of overalls worn by forensic teams at crime scenes but Jenny always liked to think it made her look like an astronaut.

“Okay, sweetheart,” the butcher addressed the chubby little girl who was waiting patiently but with obvious excitement, rocking on her heels with her hands behind her back, “your mum wants your hair taken off so she can boil your head later. It’s easier to do that while you’re alive if you don’t mind?” Jenny knew that this was a lie but only a little white one. It was fairly easy, if slightly messier, to de-hair a severed head and she had done so herself on many occasions but she had come to understand that there were broadly two types of meat-girl that came through her dad’s shop – those who were excited and those who just wanted it over with, however willing they might be. Had this girl been of the second type she’d have likely been dead already with any work that needed to be done happening posthumously. This girl, however, was clearly of the first type.

Although they understood that, by the time they got anywhere close to actually being eaten, they would be long dead, girls who were excited like this one clearly was enjoyed going as far through the process as they possibly could before actually being killed. Some even liked to be alive as parts of their bodies were cut off but those tended to be the older girls and Jenny thought it unlikely that a girl as young as the one they were about to process would want that.