Knuckles reached over and gave her a gentle clap on the shoulder. "Well, that's real thoughtful of you. I bet if more folks thought that way, everyone'd be a lot happier."

He walked back to the fridge and opened it up, picking out two wrapped packages. He pulled away their newspaper trappings. They were both shrink wrapped chickens which he tore open with relatively little effort, careful not to splash anything anywhere.

"And this is the other half of his dinner. He's a predator, after all, and it's better that I get him these than to have him chasing wild ones."