A Taste for Rabbit

by Linda Zuckerman

* * *

  Harry and Elton walked down the path toward Elton’s tent. The late afternoon sunshine was fading and the sky was clouding over; the cold air and the chill breeze suggested more snow.

  “So the moochy-poochy stones were right about me but wrong about Quentin,” Harry said.

  “Not moochy-poochy,” Elton said patiently. “Tell future.”

  “But the blue stone broke in half! Remember?”

  “Quentin divided. Not broken.” He looked at Harry. “Different.”

  “If you say so,” Harry said, feeling once again how hopeless it was to argue with a badger.

  “Say so,” Elton said, and kept on walking.

  Elton stopped. “Wait.” He walked into the woods and disappeared.

  Again? Harry thought. Haven’t I been here before?

  The badger reappeared, carrying a large branch of cedar. In a few moments he’d carved a staff for Harry and handed it to him.

  “Thank you.” Harry took one last look at Isaac’s walking stick and threw it with all his strength into the woods.

  “If Quentin is alive,” Harry said as they continued walking, “I guess that means Wally is dead too.”

  “Quentin, ” Elton said with admiration in his voice. “Saw evil. Fought it.” He walked in silence for a moment. “Brave rabbit,” he said.

  “Yes,” Harry agreed. “But that’s because he survived. If he had died he wouldn’t be brave — he’d be foolish.”

  Elton shook his head. “Brave. Either way.”

  * * *

  In a short time, they were standing in front of the tent, not far from the clearing where Harry had first seen Quentin and heard him talking to himself. The shock of that moment would be with him for a long time.

  It was snowing again. The ground in front of them had been trampled recently with many footsteps, and there were signs that heavy bundles had been dragged from place to place, but the snow was beginning to cover the deep furrows and footprints, filling them in. Soon it will seem as if none of this ever happened, Harry thought.

  Elton peered inside. “Look.” The tent was empty except for a small book that lay on the ground.

  Harry picked up the book and opened it. A piece of paper fluttered to the ground. Harry showed Elton the large, scrawled Q that decorated the flyleaf.

  “Quentin’s,” Elton said. “Read.”

  Harry read aloud: “Harry — Wally and Dan are dead. Thanks for keeping Gerard away from the cave. I killed Wally, and even though I was defending myself, I broke a rule I’ve always believed in. I’m not sorry I killed him, though. I’m just sorry I had to.

  “I know you thought my decision to go after Wally and Dan was foolish, but I felt there were much bigger things at stake than my own life. I never really knew what that meant until I saw a burlap sack lying on the floor of the tunnel. Good luck in bringing your brother to justice! He deserves nothing less. — Quentin.”

  Harry handed the note to Elton, who read it silently. He handed it back to Harry, and looked at him quizzically. “Well?”

  Harry sat down to rest his leg. “I told you. I have no alternative. Either I travel North and find my brother, or I go home like a sniveling coward and try to have a life in Foxboro. Either I make him pay for what he tried to do to me, or I pretend everything is fine and let him believe that he outfoxed me and that I’m a fool who deserves what he got. Doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me.”

  “Vengeance. Bad choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Elton didn’t answer. He turned away, his face expressionless, and settled down across from Harry. Then he methodically unwrapped one of the packages from Becky. “Decide tomorrow.”

  “I have decided,” Harry said again. He unwrapped his own package, and began to eat.

  Elton didn’t say another word. He gathered twigs and branches for a fire, distributed blankets from within his heavy wrapped bundle, and sat silently watching the flames as they crackled and later died. When the stars appeared, he put on his nightcap and slippers and rolled himself into a rough, brown blanket. In a little while, he was snoring softly.

  * * *

  The next morning, after they had made a fire and shared the remaining sandwiches from the Inn, Elton sat quietly for a moment, looking at Harry.

  “Your brother,” he said finally. “Why?”

  “Why what? Why do I despise him?”

  Elton nodded.

  Harry stood up, exasperated. “Elton, for the gods’ sake! Do I have to make a list? He deceived me and my parents about his handicap — there was never anything wrong with his leg. He used it as an excuse to get attention from them and sympathy from the world. He acquired power and abused it. He sent me out as a decoy — Me! His own brother! — in the hope that I would be mistaken for him and killed in his place. And he almost succeeded!” Harry could feel his anger rising. “And he agreed to a trade in sentient creatures — breaking the one law that ties all of us — and enriched himself even more. He has no morals, no ethics, no scruples! He is evil! Someone has to stop him!”

  Elton looked down at the ground. “Isaac. Powerful.” He glanced up at Harry from the corner of his eye. “Dangerous.”

  “I’ll take the risk. I have to,” Harry said, beginning to see where this was going. He was silent for a long moment. “It’s more than vengeance, isn’t it. It’s what Quentin said. It’s bigger.”

  “Yes.”

  It was true. When he thought about Isaac’s deception he could feel the outrage pounding in his veins. The trade went beyond that. It was the difference between a puddle and an ocean. I have never been an especially good fox, he thought. I have had my moments of lying and cheating. But I would never have participated in this, not for all the gold in Foxboro, not for all the gold in the world.

  I am not like my brother.

  “Well, whatever it is,” Harry said aloud, “I’m going to find Isaac and stop him. Even if it means I have to …” He wasn’t ready to finish the sentence.

  Elton stood up and walked over to Harry, holding out his paw. “Harry,” he said. “Brave fox.”

  Harry could feel his face get hot, but he held out his paw and they shook. “Not so fast, Elton,” he said. “I haven’t done anything yet, and it’s a long way to the mountains. In fact, I should be leaving.”

  Elton went back to his pack and pulled out the checkerboard. “Play,” he said, turning back to Harry. He held out the feathered pine cone.

  “Now?” Harry said. “Why?”

  Elton did not move.

  “You know I’ve won the last two games,” Harry said, “including one I played with you, remember?”

  The badger nodded. “Good coughing.” Then he said, “You win. Go alone. I win. I decide.”

  “What does ‘I decide’ mean?”

  “I. Go. With. You. We. Sell. Things. Play. Checkers. Throw. Stones.” He struggled to get the words out. “Stop. Isaac. Together.” He wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.

  Harry was amazed. “You can do complete sentences!”

  “Hate it,” Elton replied, looking disgusted. “Waste breath.” He gestured to the board. “Play?”

  Harry’s first impulse was to laugh out loud. Traveling with the badger — throwing moochy-poochy stones, and all the rest — was not exactly what he’d planned for his future. He tried to imagine what it would be like. He remembered vole stew at the cabin, and Elton’s stubborn insistence on sharing; he thought about the badger’s nightcap and slippers, and his buzzing snore — but the most vivid picture was that of Elton emerging from the shadows of the cave and stopping Tabor’s knife with a paw on Harry’s shoulder and one word.

  Elton sat motionless in front of the checkerboard, holding the playing piece. He stared intently at Harry through his spectacles.

  “All right.” Harry took the pine cone and placed it on a gray square. “I’ll play. But either way, I am going to win.”

  Heartfelt thanks for friend
ship, inspiration, and support to:

  Nancy Garden, Marylou Mahar, Meg Des Camp, Nancy Gallt, Joan Behn, Ann Whitford Paul, Susan Fletcher, Susan Goldman Rubin, Marla Frazee, Elsa Warnick, Ann Ruttan, Judi Davis, T. Degens, Bob and Roanne Hickok, Harriet Wasserman, Helen Greer, Marilyn Ginsburg, Cecile, Jessica, and Tom Knab, Mike Knab and Kim Zundel, Kristi Knab, Jude Knab and Dolores Moorehead, Maurice Aboaf, Jacques Aboaf, Myra Glasser and Richard Keough, Helen Richardson and Don Hayner, Sharon and Buck Buckmaster, Eva Rickles, Chris Knab and Sue Cook, Judy Randol, Carole Binswanger, the WIT ladies, my Kesilman cousins, and the Critter critiquers. Thanks to Mom, who taught me to read and who told me that if I wanted to find the truth I should “look in a book”; to Arthur Levine, for his perceptive and sympathetic editorial guidance; to the many talented authors I worked with over the years who, by their example, taught me to write; and of course, always, to Klaus.

  —L.Z.

  About the Author

  Linda Zuckerman has been a book editor for nearly forty years, and edited three Caldecott Medal books and two that received Newbery Honors. Her first work as an author was the picture book I Will Hold You ’Til You Sleep, illustrated by Jon J Muth. A Taste for Rabbit is her first novel. Linda lives with her husband, an artist, near Portland, Oregon.

  Text © 2007 by Linda Z. Knab

  All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and the LANTERN LOGO are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Zuckerman, Linda.

  A taste for rabbit / by Linda Zuckerman. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Quentin, a rabbit who lives in a walled compound run by a militaristic government, must join forces with Harry, a fox, to stop the sinister disappearances of outspoken and rebellious rabbit citizens.

  ISBN 0-439-86977-3 [1. Government, Resistance to —Fiction. 2. Rabbits—Fiction.

  3. Foxes—Fiction. 4. Animals—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.Z78Tas 2007

  [Fic]—dc22

  2007007787

  First edition, October 2007

  Cover art © 2007 by Sam Weber

  Cover design by Alison Klapthor

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-63751-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.