The Rabbits’
Rebellion
ARIEL DORFMAN
Illustrations by
CHRIS RIDDELL
SEVEN STORIES PRESS
New York • Oakland • London
Text copyright © 1990, 2001 by Ariel Dorfman
Illustrations © 2001 by Chris Riddell
A TRIANGLE SQUARE BOOK FOR YOUNG READERS
published by
SEVEN STORIES PRESS
First Triangle Square edition January 2020
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
SEVEN STORIES PRESS
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New York, NY 10013
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING - IN - PUBLICATION DATA
NAMES: Dorfman, Ariel, author. | Riddell, Chris, illustrator.
TITLE: The rabbits’ rebellion / Ariel Dorfman; illustrated by Chris Riddell.
DESCRIPTION: First Triangle Square edition. | New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2019. | Originally published in the United Kingdom by Doubleday Children’s Books in 2001.
SUMMARY: In a magical animal kingdom where oppression and censorship reign, the wolf king decrees that rabbits no longer exist, but the unmentionable furry creatures refuse to be ignored.
IDENTIFIERS: LCCN 2019023379 | ISBN 9781609809379 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781609809386 (ebk)
SUBJECTS: CYAC: Wolves—Fiction. | Rabbits—Fiction. | Animals—Fiction. | Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction.
CLASSIFICATION: LCC PZ7.D6935 Rab 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023379
College professors and high school and middle school teachers may order free examination copies of Seven Stories Press titles. To order, visit www.sevenstories.com or send a fax on school letterhead to (212) 226-1411.
Printed in the USA.
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When the wolves conquered the land of the rabbits, the first thing the leader of the pack did was to proclaim himself king. The second was to announce that the rabbits had ceased to exist. Now and forever it would be forbidden to even mention their name.
Just to be on the safe side, the new Wolf King went over every book in his realm with a big black pencil, crossing out words and tearing out pictures of cottontails until he was satisfied that not a trace of his enemies remained.
But an old grey fox who was his counsellor brought bad news.
“The birds, Your Wolfiness, insist that they have seen some . . . some of those creatures. From on high.”
“So how come I don’t see anything from way up here, on my throne?” asked the wolf.
“In times like these,” answered the fox, “people have got to see to believe.”
“Seeing is believing? Bring me that monkey who takes photos, the one who lives nearby. I’ll teach those birds a lesson.”
The monkey was old and weak. “What can the Wolf of all Wolves want with me?” he asked, looking at his wife and daughter.
The little girl had an answer. “He must want you to take a picture of the rabbits, Dad.”
“Quiet, quiet,” said her mother. “Rabbits don’t exist.”
But the little monkey knew that rabbits did exist. It was true that, since the howling wolves had invaded the country, the rabbits no longer came to visit her as they had before. But in her dreams she continued hearing the green rain of their voices singing nearby, reflecting in her head as if she were a pond under the moonlight, and when she awoke there was always a small gift beside her bed. Walls and closed doors were like water for the rabbits.
“That’s why I sleep well,” said the little girl. “That’s why that General Wolf must need the photo. To keep nightmares away. You’ll bring me a picture of them someday, won’t you, Dad?”
The monkey felt fear crawl up and down his fur. “Send this little girl to her room,” he told his wife, “until she understands that there are certain things we just don’t talk about.”
The king of the wolves was not in the best of moods when the monkey came in. “You’re late. And I’m in a hurry. I need photographs of each important act in my life. And all my acts, let me tell you, are supremely important . . . Can you guess what we’re going to do with those pictures? You can’t? We’re going to put one on every street, inside every bush, in every home. I’ll be there, watching each citizen with my very own eyes. You’d better pity those who don’t have the latest events of my life hung up on their walls. And you know who is going to distribute each picture? You don’t know?”
The monkey was trembling so hard that no words came out.
“The birds, ugly monkey. Now they they’ll bite their own beaks before they twitter around with any nonsense about rabbits. And we’ll tie an endless cord to their legs, so they can’t escape. Understand?”
The monkey understood so well that his trembling paw immediately clicked the shutter of the camera, taking the first picture.
“Go,” roared the Wolf, “and develop it. I want it on every wall in the kingdom.”
But when the photographer returned some minutes later, he did not dare to enter the throne room, and asked one of the soldiers to call the counsellor. Without a word, the monkey passed him the picture he had just taken.
The fox blinked once, and then blinked again. In a corner of the photo, far from the muscular, ferocious figure of the King—who had both arms up in the air as if he had just won a boxing championship—appeared what was without any doubt the beginning of an ear, the ear of someone who had insolently come to spy on the whole ceremony.
“You blind monkey!” fumed the fox. “How come you didn’t notice that this . . . this thing was there? Can’t you focus that camera of yours?”
“If it could get into the picture,” the monkey answered, “it was because you and your guards let it get close.”
“It won’t happen again,” the counsellor promised. “Rub out that . . . ear before His Wolfishness finds out.”
From his bag, the monkey took out a special liquid that he used to erase any detail that might bother a client. The intruding ear began to disappear as if it had never existed.
The King of the Wolves was pleased with the portrait and ordered it sent all over the realm. Two hours later he personally went on an inspection tour to make sure that not a window was without a picture of his large, gleaming, dangerous grin. “Not bad,” he said, “but this photo is already getting old. People should see my latest deeds. Take another. Quick. Show me scaring these pigeons—right away. And bring it to me immediately. You took too long last time.”
But the monkey wasn’t able to comply this time either. Once again he had the counsellor called secretly.
“Again?” asked the fox. “It happened again?”
Except that now it was worse than an indiscreet ear. A whole corner of the new picture was filled with the unmistakable face of . . . yes, there was no denying it, of a rabbit winking an eye in open defiance of the nearby guards.
“We’ve got to tighten security,” muttered the fox. “Meanwhile, erase that invader.”
“Wonderful,” shouted the King Wolf when he was finally given the picture. “Look at the frightened faces of the pigeons trying to escape. I want a million copies. I want them on milk cartons and on the coupons inside cereals . . . Onwards. Onwards. Let’s go and smash up a dam. Come on, monkey. Fame awaits us both.”
The beavers had been working summer and winter for three years on a beautiful dam that would allow them to irrigate a distant valley.
The Wolf of Wolves climbed a tree. “I want you to shoot the precise moment when my feet crash into the middle of the dam, monkey. If you miss the shot, next time I’ll fall on top of you and then I’ll have to get myself another photographer. Are you ready?”
Not only was the monkey ready, so was the counsellor. The fox was breathing down the old monkey’s back, peering over his shoulder, watching, listening. Nothing could escape those vigilant, darting eyes. Not a fuzzy ear would dare to make its appearance.
So neither the monkey nor the fox could believe it when, a bit later, they saw at the bottom of the picture a rabbit lolling on his side as if he were relaxing at a picnic. Next to him, another rabbit had raised her paw and was boldly thumbing her nose.
“This is an epidemic,” said the fox. “And let me tell you, our lives are in danger.”
“Let’s start erasing,” the monkey said wearily.
“You erase. I’ll get a squadron of buzzards and hawks. They see all animals, even the quick and the small.”
His Wolfhood the King yelped with pleasure when he saw a picture. It portrayed him at the exact moment he was breaking the backbone of the beavers’ dam. In the distance, families of beavers could be seen fleeing. There was not a single shadow of a rabbit.
“Send it out! A strong country is an educated country, a country that always is tuned in to the latest news. What are we going to do now for some fun?”
“We could rest,” the monkey suggested, his paws peeling from the harsh erasing fluid.
The Wolf looked at him as if he were a stone.
“And who asked you for an opinion? I’m in charge here. That’s why I was born with these teeth, and you’d better pray you never have to feel them crunching your bones. Onwards. We are the future, the morrow, the dawn! We’ll go on until there’s no more light.”
But in each new photo, the rabbits became more plentiful, audacious and saucy. His Wolfinity the King destroyed sugar mills, shook squirrels out of their trees and hid their nuts, stripped ducks of their feathers, drove sheep off cliffs, drilled holes in the road so that horses would break their legs, unveiled new cages and old dungeons . . . and the more his frightening yellow eyes flickered, the more innumerable were the rabbits of every colour that frolicked the margins of the photographs. Even the clouds seemed full of fur and whiskers and cottontails.
“Hey, birdie,” jeered the Supreme Wolf, grabbing a swallow about to fly off with a bag overflowing with pictures, “what tune are you singing now, featherhead? Who’s that in the centre of the picture, huh? Who’s the King?”
The bird held his beak tight, so that not even a peep could come out.
“Lights, camera, action, monkey!” the Monarch demanded. “Call this: WOLF KING RECEIVES HOMAGE FROM A MESSENGER.”
The monkey obeyed, but could hardly hide his despair. Though nobody ever saw the rebels when the photos were taken, they were always there when it was time to show them, nibbling lettuce at the very feet of the biggest and baddest of wolves.
“Exterminate them,” hissed the fox, who had ordered a stronger, more acid liquid. “Don’t leave even a twitch of a nose.”
But the pictures were beginning to look defective. There were blank spaces everywhere. The monkey knew that the only solution was to convince His Wolfiness to sit up high on an elevated throne. Since rabbits live underground, they wouldn’t be able to wiggle their way into the frame of the photograph.
The King, fortunately, was delighted with the idea. “I’ll look more impressive up here. And I can keep an eye on those birds. What a surprise for my subjects when they find my new picture at breakfast, right? So get here early, monkey, do you hear?”
When the exhausted monkey dragged himself home, his fingers hurting from the terrible liquid, the latest photograph of the King had just been plastered on the front door of his house. Just at that moment a soldier was leaving.
“No cause for alarm, Mr. Monkey,” the soldier laughed. “Just a routine inspection to see if anybody is sabotaging His Wolfhood’s pictures.”
The Monkey rushed inside. “Our daughter? Is she all right? Did she say anything?”
“I’m fine, Dad,” the little girl said. “Those wolves are gone, aren’t they? And you brought me that special photo—you know, the one I asked you for?”
The monkey felt as if from all four walls, from all four pictures on the four walls, the eight eyes of the Biggest of Wolves were watching each word he might say.
“Let your father rest,” said her mother. “The only pictures he’s taken are the ones we’ve put up in the house, like good citizens.”
But the next morning, the monkey was awakened by his child’s kiss. She put her lips near his ears and whispered something so softly that only he could hear it: “Thank you. It’s the best present you could ever give me. You’re a magical dad.”
“Thanks? Thanks for what?”
She motioned almost imperceptibly toward the wall from which the photo of the Wolf King ruled. Her father opened his eyes wide. In one of the corners of that picture, like the sun rising over the mountains, he could just glimpse, in the act of making their gradual but glorious appearance, a pair of, yes, of course, a pair of soft, pink, pointed ears.
The monkey jumped out of bed. The liquid he had applied did not work permanently. The rabbits had needed the whole night to sneak back into the pictures, but somehow they had managed it.
“I think they knew I was scared,” the little girl murmured, “and came to see me while I slept.”
Her father dressed in less time than it takes a chill to run up a spine and scurried to the palace without stopping for breakfast. Was this happening only at their house or could the same invasion have taken place everywhere in the kingdom? If so, how could the rabbits be removed from so many portraits?
His Wolfishness was still in bed, but the counsellor was already pacing about, biting the tip of his tail. “It’s a plague,” he said, “but, fortunately, it is already under control. The offending pictures have been burned. As for you . . .”
“I swear that I—”
“Not a word from you,” interrupted the fox. “It’s lucky those creatures don’t exist. Imagine the damage they’d cause if they really existed. But enough talk. What we need now is a new photo to replace the ones that are contaminated.”
They rushed to the new throne, which was now set up on the top of colossal wooden legs, out of reach of the spreading virus of the mischievous ears.
“I want two shots,” His Wolfhood demanded when he arrived, “one of me ascending my throne and another of me sitting on it, enjoying the fresh air. And send them abroad too, so those silly foreign papers will stop attacking me.”
This time, when the photos were developed, there was no trouble. Not so much as a carrot of a sign of a rabbit.
“Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I tell you they don’t exist?” The counsellor was jubilant. “It was just a matter of you focusing the camera properly.”
For the next few days, there were no more unpleasant surprises. The Wolf of Wolves felt happy, high above the heads of the multitude. He let his lieutenants run things while he posed for pictures giving commands, delivering speeches, signing laws. He examined the shots carefully, however. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re being more careful, monkey. It seems you’re learning your trade just by being near me. I don’t see any more of those whitish spots that spoiled my first pictures.”
But one morning, the monkey was again awakened by his daughter’s voice. “They’re back, Dad,” she whispered in his ear. “Those pictures you took are magical.”
In one set of photos, at the foot of the towering throne, a small army of rabbits was biting, chewing and splintering the wooden legs. Their teeth worked patiently, and they stopped their work only now and again to wave to the spectators.
The counsellor was waiting. The monkey could see his fur ruffling and swelling like a swarm of bees.
“How many this time?” the monkey asked.<
br />
“The photos are being taken care of,” the fox said grimly. “But the birds have got wind of what happened, and now they’re telling everyone that those . . . those awful animals exist. And His Wolfinity is beginning to suspect something. ‘Why are those birds so happy, so shrill?’ he asks. I told him they’re just a bunch of featherbrains, full of hot air.”
“What did he answer?” asked the monkey.
The King had announced that balloons are full of hot air too and that they could be popped. If those birds didn’t keep quiet, he’d make them disappear, just like those unmentionable furry creatures.
But the counsellor had another idea: the Wolf of All Wolves should tie a recording of one of his latest speeches around the necks of the birds. They would have to carry not only the photos, but also the King’s words, all over his kingdom. Nobody would be able to hear any of their songs.
“Hearing is believing,” trumpeted His Wolfiness. “We’ll give them a taste of some hymns, some military marches, some lessons in history, economics and ethics.”
The old monkey’s life became unbearable. Not even the recorded howls of the King and his chorus of warlike beasts could stop the timid appearance, in the next photo, of an inquisitive nose, a pair of furry ears, some white whiskers, and something hungry gnawing away at the legs of the throne.
The fox replaced the chief officer of the royal guard with a boa constrictor straight from the jungle of a neighbouring country. He put small, hundred-eyed spiders in strategic places throughout the Wolfdom. One day he ordered half the population to shave off their shiny fur so that no spy could hide in it. To punish the cows, accused of uttering subversive moos, he commanded that their milk be soured. And finally, he raised the volume of the King’s broadcasts. But in spite of these efforts, there began to be heard a persistent, rowdy, merry sound, the clicking of thousands of tiny teeth, the burbling of an underground stream.
The Rabbits' Rebellion Page 1