Bunny Trouble

by Jennifer Gray

‘NO!’ Fuzzy and Terry closed the lid of Ben’s laptop just in time to stop Binny pooing on that as well.

  Just then they heard Ben’s key in the latch.

  ‘I’m out of here.’ Terry raced after his brothers and sisters. ‘Good luck!’ He wriggled out of the cat flap.

  Fuzzy and Coco rushed back to their hutch. Ben and Henrietta couldn’t find out they’d escaped or they’d put a new lock on the hutch door.

  They heard Ben’s footsteps on the stairs.

  He opened the kitchen door.

  ‘Yuk!’ he said. The guinea pigs watched as he got out a dustpan and brush and swept up all the droppings into the bin.

  ‘Binny!’ he called. ‘Binny!’ She scampered over to him. Ben reached out his hand to her. To the guinea pigs’ surprise, rather than biting his finger, she allowed him to scratch her gently between the ears. ‘Good girl,’ Ben said. ‘That’s much better.’

  ‘Good girl!’ Coco squealed to Fuzzy. ‘Good girl?’

  Coco’s chattering attracted Ben’s attention. Of course he didn’t know that the guinea pigs were talking to one another, because although guinea pigs can understand humans, humans can’t understand guinea pigs. But he did understand that Coco sounded cross.

  Ben walked over to the cage with a smile and put his face to the wire.

  ‘There’s no need to be jealous,’ he said kindly.

  Then he stopped smiling. Instead his face wore a big frown.

  He pulled out his mobile phone and dialled a number.

  ‘Henrietta,’ he said into the phone, ‘you’d better come and see this.’

  ‘What is it?’ Henrietta’s voice sounded worried.

  ‘It’s Coco and Fuzzy,’ Ben said. ‘They must have got out.’

  Coco and Fuzzy glanced at one another. How did he know?

  ‘And they’ve done something terrible.’ Ben burst into tears.

  Terrible? What did he mean? They hadn’t done anything!

  ‘They’ve eaten my favourite grapes!’ Ben snivelled.

  The guinea pigs glanced behind them. Sure enough a forest of grape stalks and a few pips littered the hutch.

  ‘Binny!’ Fuzzy and Coco sighed.

  3

  Save the Rescue Centre

  Ben and Henrietta knew a lot about pets. They knew that they couldn’t let a naughty event like stealing Ben’s favourite grapes go unpunished, in case it happened again. They took away Fuzzy and Coco’s sweet spring carrots so that they would learn a lesson about not stealing other people’s food. Of course what they didn’t know was that Coco and Fuzzy weren’t naughty at all. It was Binny who had stolen and eaten the grapes, but she had made it look as if Coco and Fuzzy had done it!

  Coco and Fuzzy sat in their hutch feeling sad. They couldn’t even go out in the garden because, just as they had feared, Ben had put a new lock on the hutch and they couldn’t work out how to open it. Luckily Eduardo popped into the kitchen through the old cat flap to see where they were.

  ‘Amigos!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why are you not outside in the beautiful sunshine?’

  Fuzzy nodded towards the door of the hutch. Eduardo gasped when he saw the new lock.

  ‘But how did this happen?’

  Fuzzy told him. When he got to the bit about the manners lesson and the poo problem, Eduardo laughed.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Coco said crossly. ‘Imagine if the Queen had been there.’

  ‘Anyway, then Ben came home,’ Fuzzy continued, ‘and discovered the grape stalks in our hutch. He thought we’d got out and stolen his favourite grapes. That’s why he grounded us and put the new lock on. I mean, we did get out, obviously, but we didn’t steal the grapes. It was Binny.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Eduardo pondered for a moment. ‘Well, you are in luck, amigos. For I, Eduardo Julio Antonio del Monte, will free you.’ He got his skeleton keys out of his satchel. They were keys that could open any lock. Eduardo always carried them, just in case he got trapped somewhere and needed to escape back to freedom in a hurry. Carefully he placed a skeleton key in the lock and twisted it gently in his paws.

  PING!

  The lock sprang open.

  ‘You should have asked me to rescue you this morning,’ Eduardo said to the friends as they trotted out of the hutch. ‘I didn’t have nothing to do except write freedom songs.’

  ‘How could we ask you when we were locked in the hutch?’ said Coco grumpily. She hadn’t enjoyed sitting in there with a load of grape stalks and no spring carrots to eat.

  ‘Well, come now into the garden,’ said Eduardo, pointing to the cat flap, ‘and I’ll sing my new song to you!’

  ‘No, thanks, Eduardo,’ Fuzzy said. ‘I need to make my website. And I still haven’t tried to teach Binny how to use the computer. I really think that might work. I don’t know any young creature who doesn’t like learning online.’

  ‘You can try,’ Eduardo said, shrugging, ‘and when it doesn’t work out, you can send her into the garden to learn with me. You coming, Coco?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Coco. ‘I’ll come out when we’ve finished with Binny.’

  ‘See you in two minutes then,’ said Eduardo as he hopped out of the cat flap.

  ‘Ha ha!’ Coco called after him. She really hoped Fuzzy was right about teaching Binny to use the computer: at least it would shut Eduardo up.

  Although Binny was naughty most of the time, she was also still very young so she spent the rest of the time asleep. She was snoozing in the corner of her hutch when Fuzzy tapped on the chewed wire.

  ‘Binny,’ he called, ‘do you want to come and see some lovely bunnies?’

  Binny opened one eye.

  ‘I’ve been dreaming about grapes,’ she yawned.

  ‘Good for you,’ said Coco sourly. ‘I’ve been having nightmares about them.’

  Binny chewed a hole in the wire and jumped out. ‘Where are these bunnies, then?’ she said, looking around the room.

  ‘They’re not real bunnies,’ said Fuzzy. ‘They’re on the computer.’

  Henrietta had taken the laptop to work so the guinea pigs had to use the big computer on the table.

  ‘How are we going to get up there?’ Binny asked. Like most guinea pigs, rabbits can’t climb.

  ‘Like this!’ Coco and Fuzzy showed Binny how to use ‘the jump’. The jump was a clever device that the guinea pigs used to get up on things like tables and computer desks when their owners weren’t around. It worked like a see-saw with a flat bit (in this case a ruler) balanced over a triangular bit (in this case a bit of chair leg Binny had chewed off).

  Coco and Fuzzy balanced the ruler on the chewed chair leg.

  ‘Sit on that end,’ Fuzzy told Binny.

  Binny hopped on to one end of the ruler and sat down.

  ‘Here goes!’ Fuzzy took a running jump and landed on the other end.

  ‘Wheeee!’ Binny looked like she enjoyed being catapulted into the air and giggled when she landed on the table.

  Coco realized that she’d never heard Binny giggle before. Maybe as well as being a naughty bunny, she wasn’t always a very happy bunny?

  It was Fuzzy’s turn next. He landed beside Binny on the table.

  ‘What about her?’ Binny asked, pointing at Coco.

  ‘You should call me “Coco”, not “her”!’ Coco said. ‘And it’s rude to point.’ She wriggled up the wire at the back of the computer. ‘One learned to climb when one was at Buckingham Palace, playing the harp,’ she explained.

  Binny looked at her blankly.

  ‘You can find anything you want on the computer,’ said Fuzzy, turning it on. ‘What would you like to look at?’

  ‘Home,’ said Binny straight away.

  ‘Well, I guess home for you is the rescue centre.’

  Fuzzy found the Strawberry Park Animal Rescue Centre website.

  ‘There you are!’ said Fuzzy, flicking through photos of rabbits being adopted by loving children.

  Binny suddenly burst into tears. Not just a few little drips, b
ut great big gulpy sobs.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked Coco, who hated seeing anyone cry, even a naughty bunny like Binny.

  ‘I – I – I – want to go home,’ wailed Binny.

  ‘To the rescue centre?’ asked Fuzzy.

  ‘No, to a real home!’ she sniffed.

  Fuzzy tried to cheer Binny up by clicking on a photo of last year’s Easter Fair.

  ‘Look, Binny. That’s the Easter Fair. It happens every year. Lots of children come and all the animals get adopted. That could happen to you on Saturday. If my website works.’

  ‘But I chewed through the cages,’ Binny said. ‘The rescue centre’s finished. Ben said so.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Fuzzy said. ‘We’re going to try to save it by asking people on the computer to come and help fix the cages and clean up.’ He tapped the keyboard.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Binny asked.

  ‘I’m making a website with a photograph of you I’ve taken from the rescue centre homepage. See?’

  Binny pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘What does that bit mean?’

  ‘If people want to help,’ Fuzzy explained, ‘they tick the box. That way we know how many people will be coming. And they can leave a comment if they want to.’

  ‘And what’s the Easter Bunny?’ asked Binny, reading the screen carefully.

  ‘It’s a bunny that brings happiness at Easter.’

  ‘And chocolate,’ said Coco, remembering the tiny piece of chocolate egg she’d had last year.

  ‘There,’ said Fuzzy. ‘The website has gone live.’

  ‘Was it dead?’ asked Binny.

  ‘No, I mean anyone who has the Internet can look at it now,’ Fuzzy explained.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Binny, and then she burst into tears again.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ asked Coco.

  ‘I’m not good!’ wailed Binny. ‘So no one will want me!’

  ‘You will be good,’ said Coco, ‘by next week. And then everyone will want you.’

  Binny’s face brightened. She looked much happier. Coco didn’t look quite so happy. This was because she didn’t believe what she’d just said. Even if the Easter Fair went ahead, Binny would never be ready. She and Fuzzy had tried everything they could. Unless …

  Coco sighed. There was only one thing for it.

  They would have to ask Eduardo for help.

  4

  Eduardo Takes Charge

  ‘I’m Binny the bunny,

  I live in the copse,

  I’m here to fight for freedom

  And biff Renard the fox.

  Eduardo is my hero,

  He’s cool and strong and brave,

  He’ll teach me to light fires

  And dig my own cave!’

  ‘Excellent!’ Eduardo applauded. ‘That’s the spirit, Bunny! Well done! I especially like the first two lines of the second verse.’

  It was the next day and the animals were in the garden. Eduardo had arrived just after lunch to let Fuzzy and Coco out of the hutch and to collect Binny. His first lesson for Binny was to write a freedom song.

  Binny thumped her foot on the ground happily.

  Coco and Fuzzy looked on. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Coco whispered.

  Fuzzy looked at her in astonishment. ‘It was your idea, Coco!’ he reminded her. ‘You were the one who said we should let Eduardo try to help Binny.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Coco could be a bit forgetful. ‘Well, at least she seems to be enjoying herself.’

  Pleased with the success of her freedom song, Binny was racing around the garden, stopping occasionally to chew Ben and Henrietta’s best plants.

  ‘Maybe Eduardo was right,’ Coco added. It was hard for her to say this because she didn’t usually like it when Eduardo was right. But on this occasion, if it was good for Binny, she didn’t mind.

  Fuzzy squeezed her paw.

  ‘Cooee!’ It was Banoffee. She appeared through the hole in the garden fence.

  ‘The kids are all ready,’ she told Eduardo. ‘Except Terry, who’s not very keen on outdoor games.’

  ‘Ready for what?’ Fuzzy asked.

  ‘Eduardo’s offered to take them on a camping trip!’ Banoffee explained. ‘Just for the afternoon,’ she added. ‘They need to be home for tea.’

  ‘Banoffee!’ Eduardo said sternly. ‘I have already told you. They will not need tea. They will forage for food in the copse.’

  ‘OK, well, it’s there if they want it,’ Banoffee said. ‘Come on, kids.’

  Banoffee’s children popped through the fence, one by one. Some of them held sticks. Others had hats. Pepper was carrying a basket.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Coco asked.

  ‘To put things in,’ Pepper said promptly. ‘When we go foraging.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ Eduardo clapped. ‘Now listen, everyone. First up, it is very important not to get lost in the wild. Get lost, get eaten, that’s what I was taught. So you must each have a partner. Binny, you go with Blossom. The rest of you make pairs.’

  The children did as they were told. Even Binny.

  ‘This seems to be working really well!’ Fuzzy remarked.

  ‘I told you so!’ Eduardo said.

  He was bragging! Coco reminded herself not to get cross.

  ‘OK, let’s go.’ Eduardo led the procession under the fence at the bottom of the garden into the copse.

  Coco and Fuzzy followed a little way behind while Banoffee went back to her hutch to make the tea, just in case.

  The copse was a patch of wild ground with long grass, some dense bushes and a big oak tree in the middle of a clearing. Eduardo’s burrow was under the oak tree in a hollowed-out den among the tree roots.

  Eduardo marched the guinea piglets briskly through the grass. He stopped at the clearing, beside the entrance to his burrow.

  ‘What about Renard?’ Coco said nervously, glancing around. The fox had once sneaked up on her under the oak tree and tried to eat her. She didn’t want him doing that to Banoffee’s children or Binny.

  ‘Yeah, let’s get him!’ Binny cried.

  Eduardo frowned. ‘Bunny,’ he said, ‘do not speak no more about that. You need to be an expert in freedom fighting like me before you can fight Renard.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Binny said. ‘I want a go.’

  ‘Me too! Me too! Me too!’ all Banoffee’s children cried. ‘Let’s get Renard. Let’s get Renard. Let’s get Renard!’

  ‘Caramba! Are you crazy?’ Eduardo yelled. ‘I said no, OK? No means no.’

  Coco couldn’t help giggling. It was Eduardo’s turn to find out how difficult it was to teach Binny how to behave!

  Eduardo glared at her. ‘If that fox turns up, we jump in the burrow where he can’t get us,’ he said. ‘You understand?’

  Binny and the little guinea pigs nodded.

  ‘Good. We will start by foraging. Get into two groups.’

  The guinea pigs and Binny pushed and shoved while they decided who wanted to be with whom.

  ‘Man, this is hard work!’ Eduardo grumbled.

  ‘I told you so!’ Coco grinned.

  Eduardo sorted the squabbling babies out. ‘Now listen up! I want you to find everything you can. You never know what will come in useful when you are a freedom fighter! Off you go, but don’t go too far.’

  The two groups rambled off. Coco and Fuzzy watched as they disappeared into the fringes of the long grass.

  Five minutes later the first group – the one without Binny – returned.

  ‘What have you got?’ Eduardo asked.

  The guinea pigs turned out the contents of Pepper’s basket.

  There was a bottle top, an elastic band, a box of matches, a piece of chewed chewing gum, a ball of string and some dandelion stalks.

  ‘Excellent!’ Eduardo congratulated them.

  Just then the other group returned.

  ‘Look what Binny found!’ Blossom squeaked.

  Binny’s tail eme
rged from the long grass, followed by Binny’s bottom and Binny’s body. Her legs were straining against the ground, as if she was pulling a heavy weight. Finally her head emerged, with her ears flat. She was dragging something big into the clearing.

  The guinea pigs stared at it in awe. It was an old toy truck. A big one – with two doors at the front and a flatbed at the back to put things on.

  ‘Well done, Binny!’ Fuzzy scuttled over. He loved mechanical things. He walked around the truck to inspect it. ‘Looks like it’s battery-operated,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think it will work?’ Coco asked.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ Fuzzy opened the door.

  ‘I’ll drive.’ Before anyone had a chance to stop her, Binny hopped in and pressed the start button. The truck fired up.

  ‘No!’ Eduardo shouted. ‘You’re not old enough. You could have an accident.’ He threw himself on to the truck, wriggled through the window beside Binny and switched the engine off.

  ‘Not fair.’ Binny scowled. ‘I found it.’

  ‘Come on, Binny,’ Coco pleaded. ‘Eduardo’s right. You’re not old enough to drive. Come and see what the others found.’

  Reluctantly Binny got out of the truck and went over to take a look.

  Eduardo and Fuzzy followed. Eduardo turned the items over with a paw.

  ‘Here you have everything you need to survive in the wild,’ Eduardo said, sounding pleased. ‘Warmth, food and weapons. First I will show you how to make a fire.’ He gathered a pile of twigs together on a patch of earth and showed the campers how to light a match. ‘It must not be somewhere where it will cause a bigger fire,’ he explained, placing the match under the twigs. ‘So keep it away from the bushes. Next is food.’ He picked up a piece of dandelion stalk and held it out to the flames.

  Fuzzy sniffed. ‘Roast dandelion stalk! Delicious!’ he said. Fuzzy loved to cook. He picked up a stalk and started to roast it too. So did all the little guinea pigs.

  Coco was relieved to see Binny do the same. She seemed to have forgotten all about the truck and was fascinated by what Eduardo was doing instead.