Short fiction

Who Killed Cock Robin?

Frankly, it was a mess. The songbirds were making a racket, it was all over the wood already: Cock Robin was dead. It should have been a straight up raptor case, but raptors never leave bodies behind.

    I puffed up my shining feathers and stalked over. There was a choral flurry of “good day, Mister Magpie,” like they were a bunch of school chicks.

    Not beating about the bush, I asked straight out: “Who killed Cock Robin?”

    “I,” said Sparrow, “I killed Cock Robin, with my bow and arrow.”

    Unlikely: sparrows are notorious attention-seeking cranks and degenerates; I ignored him and tried a different tack.

    “Who saw him die?”

    “I,” said a fly, “I saw him die, with my little eye.”

    “Just tell me what you saw, and make it worth my while.”

    “It was―”

    A flash of blue and orange, and a long black beak.

    “I,” said the Fish, “I caught his blood in my little dish.” His words were slightly muffled by his steady chewing on the unfortunate fly.

    “What,” I spat, “was that, Fish? I should have you arrested for eating my key witness.”

    He gurgled something as he spotted the body of Cock Robin and burst into tears. Typical. First he eats my key witness, then breaks down. What a mess. The Fish, as Kingfisher was known, drank and drank like a fish. I wanted to take him down to the precinct for killing the fly, but it was his nature and he was a drunk.

    There soon was a chorus of birds volunteering themselves for the burial rites, as if I didn't have enough bull to listen to.

    A dim beetle volunteered to make Robin a shroud and was promptly eaten by the peckish Owl, who was of the burrowing sort and said he'd dig the grave. Rook piped up as the parson, the Lark his clerk and the Linnet in charge of some out-dated funerary custom. But it was the dame that caught my attention: Dove declared she was to be his chief mourner.

    “How long had you been Robin's girl?”

    She flustered. “Robin and I have―” she choked “―had been an item for a few months now. It was terribly common knowledge,” she sobbed.

    “How many months were you his squeeze?” I ran my eye up and down her.

    “What of it?”

    “I'm the one doing the interrogating here: how many months, Dove?”

    “Long enough, and not. You don't care what we had, or what we did, or who did that to us.”

    And with that she flew up into the high pine tree. Typical, a broad like her would walk out on a conversation before it'd even got interesting.

    There was a lull and then the procession began again. I suppressed a sigh.

    The Kite offered to carry the coffin, the Wrens―both cock and hen―said they would bear the pall, and the Thrush from her bush said she would sing the psalm. Something in this struck me; it was the Wrens―the cock and hen.

    What a funny thing it was for a dove to love anyone else but a dove.

    “Dove!” I called. “Come on back down, before I come up there myself.”

    She took her sweet time to flutter down and land gracefully on her very pink feet.

    “What?” Dove was no poker player; maybe she had been once, but I knew a murderess when I saw one.

    “How were Robin and you?”

    “I don't like you.”

    “Me neither. It was unusual, was it not? A dove and him? Just what are you afraid of, Dove?”

    She glared.

    “Do you really want to know? Or just humiliate me? That's it, isn't it? Well, Mista Magpie, let me tell you: love―love transcends species.”

    Such a lot of rage for such a little dollface.

    “Let's quit playing games. You did it, you did it because you loved him. Am I right?” It was a damn shame; a case like this usually took more effort. I whistled for backup.

    “You pig. I was defending him. And his new squeeze was gloating, that slut Redbreast. He got in the way. In my way. It shoulda been her.” Quieter, sadder, “it shoulda been her ...”

    The blackbirds arrived, tails wagging.

    Under my breath, I sang “Who'll arrest her? We, said the blackbirds, the wood's beat cops, we'll arrest her.”

    The dove, her too-pink feet catching her out red-handed; a crying shame.

    I thought I saw high up in the pine a flash of a red breast, the splash of a salty tear, but maybe not. One for sorrow they say of me. If I were two, would it be joy? Dove thinks not, and I doubt either Robin would. Three for the boy, or the body.

    The Bull lowed he would toll the bell, and as it rang all the birds of the air fell singing and sobbing for the death of poor Cock Robin and for the arrest of his love, the little white Dove.

Charlotte Plews