H. Baert, Two Rabbits (1842); public domain via Wikimedia Commons; modified
for canon chapters, see Table of Contents
I have an unfortunate birthday.
When I was four, my parents invited a bunch of adults to a park to eat cake. I don’t remember anymore what color the tent was or whether my hot dog was cooked the way I like it. But I do remember my grandmother going up to every adult I didn’t know and telling them that it was the birthday boy’s first birthday.
“I’m four!” I told my mom. “I’m not a one-year-old baby!”
“...Oh Elm—” she said, holding my wooly head against her chest. “She doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s just trying to say how much she loves you.”
By the second time I got my birthday, Mom & Dad had been gone for three years and I lived at the orphanage in Queens.
I hadn’t told any of the other kids what day was coming up. The Matron was gone that month and Eloise was in charge of the house. But that was OK because I liked Eloise and thought she was very nice.
“Elmer—” she said to me quietly. “Do you want to do anything to celebrate this year?” She had bent down to see me, so that her face was in front of mine. “Eight is a special number.”
I was reading a book so I put it down and thought.
“No,” I said after a while. “I don’t think I need a party, but thanks for asking.”
When the Saturday finally arrived, it was the fifth Saturday of the month and it was a little cold outside. But some of the others were in the front room and they were talking loudly so I knew I couldn’t play with the chess board so I put my coat on and went outside.
The Matron kept all the outside-toys in a wooden box with a latch and a lock but she rarely fixed the lock so I opened it and removed a racquet and a soft yellow ball. The ball was a little wet but I didn’t care and went to the side of the house.
There was an area a few feet wide where no plants grew so I went there and threw the ball against the side of the house and hit it back. I liked the (thwack) sound when the ball hit the house and came back. When it hit the netting of the racquet, it made a different sound, and that was OK, but it was a little sharp and I really liked the sound it made when it hit the dark brick and came back to me.
The Sun was up above me but it was covered with grey clouds all across the sky so I didn’t know what time it was. I kept hitting the ball until it did something different and it didn’t make that sound and it zoomed at my face so I had to duck and then the ball went behind me.
I turned around and thought it went underneath the rose bushes so I went there. Those bushes had thorns so I didn’t like to play there, but I wanted to keep playing so I put my racquet on the ground and walked across the grass.
There were feathers on the ground, white like the snow that had left last week, but that was not what I noticed. When I bent down and got on my hands and knees, the dirt underneath the sleeping roses had been moved and pushed into a circle. The dirt was freshly turned and was getting pale where the water had gone.
In the center—was a rabbit.
He was brown on his head and ears and the two little feet that stuck out from beneath him into the dirt. Where he was not brown, he was black, and the black covered him like a tuxedo, except where he had two white spots: one on the chest beneath his chin and another between his eyes closed shut.
I looked at him for a minute or two, and then I ran into the house, where I found Friday. I talked to Friday sometimes—she was only a couple years older than me—she knew lots of things, but she was usually grumpy.
She frowned at me when I entered the kitchen. “It’s a little cold out there, don’tcha think?”
“There’s a bunny outside! Sleeping!” I ran to the refrigerator and pulled it open and continued speaking with my face in the frigid air. “Do we have any carrots? He’s probably hungry!”
Friday walked over to me as I was digging through the drawer at the bottom of the chamber.
“Rabbits don’t eat carrots, stupid.” She said as a matter-of-fact. “That was just a gag on TV.”
“Do they eat cabbage? Or lettuce? What do you think?”
She didn’t respond for a moment, and then said something else. “I think if you feed one rabbit, soon you’ll have four, and they’re going to eat the Matron’s vegetables in the spring and she’s going to be very pissed off at you.”
“I can’t let him go hungry!”
I ran out then, and left what I had found right outside the ring of dirt. I noticed he was just barely submerged in it, like he’d made a mound of the loamy soil and then snuggled into it to get warm so that the dirt was up around his round furry body and he looked very comfortable.
I put most of the food to one side but when I laid down the carrot, I put the green in front of him, and when it touched the dirt, his eyes opened a little and he looked at me. I saw him then, and I knew he was alive and I was glad.
“Hi little bunny...” I whispered. “Here’s a snack for you when you wake up, I hope it’s something you like.”
He closed his eyes then and went back to sleep. I watched him for a while, but, feeling like maybe I was disturbing him, I went back in the house.
“You’re making a big mistake...” Friday chided me in sing-song when I opened the door. I left her in the kitchen then, and went toward the stairway, but she called after me.
“You know what rabbits do, don’t you? Do you have any idea what rabbits do?” I was soon at the top of the stairs, but she stood at the bottom and yelled at me.
“They don’t belong in our garden!”