by James Howe
Howie chuckled merrily while Chester began to fume. I could have cried at how normal everything was.
“My point,” Howie said, “was that the story was really scary. Especially the part where Billy-Bob’s pet is transformed into a french-fried poodle.”
Chester shook his head in disgust. “Who writes this drivel?” he asked.
“Drivel?” said Howie. “I don’t know what drivel is, but I can tell you one thing. M. T. Graves does not write drivel! Besides, it could really happen—you said so yourself, Pop.”
“What could really happen?”
“Vegetables can be dangerous.”
“I’ve always said that about spinach,” I interjected.
“Don’t you remember when you were worried that Bunnicula was attacking vegetables all over town, draining them of their juices, and you said the vegetables would turn into vampires, too? Remember, Pop? You had us going around staking them through their little veggie hearts with toothpicks!”
“Well ...” said Chester. I couldn’t tell if the memory was making him proud or embarrassed. He’s often poised between the two. You know how cats are—you never know if they’re going to make a cool move or a fool move, and most of the time neither do they.
Howie pressed on. “You do still think Bunnicula’s a vampire, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Chester said.
“And you do think he’s a danger to vegetables, right?”
Chester hesitated before speaking. “Let’s just say, he used to be a danger. I don’t think we have to worry about that any longer.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. Then I remembered. “Oh, because the Monroes feed him a liquid diet, he no longer drains vegetables of their juices. Is that it?”
Chester’s face took on an odd expression. “Let’s just say the matter is under control, Harold. At last.”
“But, Chester,” I said, “Bunnicula hasn’t attacked any vegetables since he escaped that time. Surely you’re no longer worried about him.”
“Oh, I’m no longer worried about him. No, I’m not worried at all.”
And with that, he jumped up on the brown velvet armchair, bid us good night, and, after circling and pawing at the seat cushion for a good five minutes, proceeded to fall into a deep and seemingly untroubled sleep.
Howie and I meandered over to Bunnicula’s cage.
“What do you think Pop meant about everything being under control?” Howie asked as we regarded our lethargic chum.
“Chester just likes to hear himself talk sometimes,” I told Howie. “And he likes to believe that Bunnicula is a threat. But I don’t think he’d do him any real harm. After all, he’s one of the family.”
Howie smiled. “My brother, the bunny,” he said.
“Hey, that reminds me, Uncle Harold. Did you read FleshCrawlers number thirty-three, My Sister the Pickled Brain? It is so cool. See, there’s this girl named Laura-Lynn O’Flynn who has this twin sister, and one day she asks her to help her with this science experiment and something goes way wrong and the next thing you know ...”
As Howie nattered on, I thought about what I’d said to him. Although I was pleased to find life carrying on as usual in the Monroe household, I was troubled that something might once again be fanning the spark of Chester’s suspicions and animosity toward an innocent rabbit—one we called a friend. Did I really believe Chester would do Bunnicula no harm? After all, he had tried to destroy Bunnicula once. How far would he have gone? How far would he go now? I had no answers and I did not like where the questions were taking me.
It was only later that night when I was fast asleep that the pieces came together as they do in dreams—the lifeless look in Bunnicula’s eyes, Chester’s mysterious comments, and the disturbing scene from the story Toby had read to me earlier. Was it one thing in particular, or was it all of the pieces floating dreamlike through my slumber, that put the questions into my mind that would not go away: Might Chester and Bunnicula be headed for their own fateful plunge from the precipice? Could this be the end of Bunnicula?
[ TWO ]
The Terrible Truth About chester
IF Saturdays at your house are anything like Saturdays at our house, let me offer you a little advice: Do not fall asleep at the bottom of the stairs. After all my Saturdays with the Monroes, you would think I would have known better. But now that I’m well into my middle years, I take the position that if you can’t live recklessly on occasion, what’s the point of it all? Unfortunately, sometimes the point of it all is that you get trampled.
As was the case on the Saturday morning in question. I had little time to think of the dreams that had disturbed my sleep the night before when I was startled awake by the sound of Pete and Toby yelling at each other. The accompanying rumble told me a stampede was in progress, and, sure enough, when I looked up and saw the Monroe brothers scrambling down the stairs, there were Pete’s bare and dirty feet heading straight for me. As far as I could tell, this morning’s altercation had something to do with a large piece of cardboard Pete was waving around over his head, which Toby was trying to get from him.
For the record, I do not move quickly in the morning.
For the record, Pete and Toby do.
It was no contest.
Oomph!
“Watch it, Harold!” Pete shouted as he landed on a part of me that was blessedly not fully awake yet.
“You could say you’re sorry!” Toby yelled at his brother, stopping to pat me on the head.
“I just did!” Pete shot back. Apparently, Toby had forgotten that “Watch it!” is Pete’s idea of an apology.
Chester wandered in as Pete and Toby continued their morning exercises.
“Give me that poster!” Toby shouted. “I made it!”
Pete waved the poster at Toby. Toby grabbed at it and missed. Pete called his brother a word of one syllable. Toby volleyed with a compound noun. Pete retorted with a backhanded insult. Toby lobbed a high string of colorful adjectives capped by a perfectly executed oxymoron.
“Boys!” Mrs. Monroe shouted from the top of the stairs. “Enough!”
“Breakfast!” Mr. Monroe called cheerfully and obliviously from the kitchen.
“And the match goes to Toby,” Chester commented as he licked a curled paw. “Nice wordplay.”
“People are fascinating, aren’t they, Chester?” I asked as we followed the boys and the enticing aroma of bacon into the kitchen. “All those words and they actually imagine they’re communicating.”
“I swear,” said Chester, “if you waved a sign in their faces that said FEED ME BEFORE I FAINT, they’d ask if you needed to go outside. Speaking of signs, what did the poster say?”
“Speaking of feed-me-before-I-faint,” I replied, “who cares what the poster said?”
In the kitchen, I joined Howie at Mr. Monroe’s side to pant and whimper and look as pathetic as possible while Mr. Monroe forked bacon onto a plate.
“Subtlety, thy name is dog,” Chester observed sarcastically
I chose not to engage in what I knew would be yet another futile round in one of our oldest debates—Getting the Food from Their Hand to Your Mouth: Shameless Begging versus Haughty Disdain. Besides, now that I was feeling a little more awake (helped by the strip of bacon Mr. Monroe slipped me on the sly; one point for shameless begging), my dreams started coming back to me. Questions were forming themselves in my mind, questions I needed to ask Chester as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
“No more, Harold,” I heard Mr. Monroe say. I was unaware that he had seated himself at the table, and I had moved from whimpering at his side to laying my head on his lap and looking up at him plaintively. It’s amazing the things that happen on automatic.
“If you want more breakfast,” he said, scratching the top of my head, “go look in your bowl. There’s a surprise waiting for you.”
Before you could say, “For me?” I was at my bowl, where I found freshly ground meat! One thing I have to say about the Monro
es, their lives may get busy, but they always think of their pets in special little ways. I’ve always said I have the best family anyone could have. Even if I do get stomped on by a certain person’s dirty, smelly feet occasionally.
“We won’t be home until late,” I heard Mrs. Monroe saying. “Toby, will you be sure to leave Bunnicula’s carrot juice for him so he’ll have it when he wakes up?”
“Okay,” said Toby, chewing. Then, “Bunnicula hasn’t been looking so good, Mom. Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”
“Now that you mention it,” said Mrs. Monroe, “there has been a real change in his energy lately. Maybe we should take him to the vet.”
“He’s just fat and lazy,” said Pete.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Toby said.
“Boys,” Mr. Monroe murmured in that way he has of letting you know you’re about to sail into treacherous waters and you’d better change course.
For a moment everyone fell silent. Then Mr. Monroe said, “He doesn’t seem seriously ill. Maybe we’ll take him to the vet on Monday. I don’t see how we can fit it in today. We’ve got so much to do, what with the rally at the movie house and all.”
“Like this dumb rally is going to make a difference,” said Pete. “I don’t see why we’re wasting our time. They’re going to tear the theater down on Tuesday whether we protest or not. It’s a lost cause.”
“Your mother and I have put months into fighting this demolition, Pete, you know that. That theater is not only very convenient, it’s architecturally important and is a local landmark of sorts. We’re not going to stop now. Decisions can still be overturned.”
“Besides, if the theater is torn down,” said Toby, “tonight’s movie will be the last one shown there. Ever! We don’t want to miss that, do we? It’s so unfair. Now we’re going to have to go all the way out to the mall to see movies.”
“Big wazoo!” said Pete, rolling his eyes. If eye-rolling were an Olympic event, Pete would be a gold medalist.
I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of the conversation. Having thoroughly cleaned my dish, I retired to the living room to begin the important task of wondering where my next meal would come from. Howie and Chester joined me.
“Chester,” I said.
“Are you going to tell me you’re worried the Monroes will forget to put food in your dish before they leave?” he asked.
“I most certainly was not!” I replied indignantly. How did he always know?
There was something else I wanted to ask him, of course—something about what he’d said the night before—but I couldn’t bring myself to ask it just then. I don’t know why. Perhaps I didn’t want to have to face the answer I suspected he would give me.
In any event, we weren’t left in peace for long. Mr. and Mrs. Monroe began bustling about, which mostly meant piling things into their car, and it struck me that most Saturdays were composed of piling a lot things into the car in the morning and taking a lot of things out of the car in the afternoon. I never noticed if they were the same things or not, but I’d concluded long ago that it was just one of those bizarre human rituals destined not to make a great deal of sense. Meanwhile, Pete applied himself seriously to the task of finding ever new and creative ways to be annoying, while Toby took Howie and me out for a morning romp. When we got back I went into immediate nap mode.
I was awakened some time later by the sound of Toby’s voice, soft and close, and the feel of his arms around my neck.
“I’m worried about Bunnicula, boy,” he whispered in my ear. “Keep an eye on him, will you? Gee, if anything ever happened to him ...”
I whimpered sympathetically and Toby sighed.
“Good old Harold,” he said. “At least I’d still have you.”
A tennis ball bounced off the top of my head.
“Nice catch, Harold!” Pete shouted.
“Mom!” Toby bellowed.
Mrs. Monroe emerged from the kitchen, her arms full of posters similar to the one Pete had been carrying earlier. “Come on, you two,” she said. “We’re going to be late for the rally. And will you please stop fighting? What happened to that promise you made me on Mother’s Day? It’s not even two weeks and the two of you are going at each other like cats and dogs. What am I saying? Harold and Howie and Chester get along better than you do.”
The car horn honked.
“Let’s go,” Mrs. Monroe said. “Your father is getting antsy.”
Toby gave me another squeeze, and the family was gone.
Chester glared at me.
“What?” I said.
“Why did Toby say, ‘At least I’d still have you,’ Harold? Why didn’t he say, ‘At least I’d still have you and Chester!”
“May I remind you that just yesterday you deposited a hairball in his sneaker?”
“That was hardly my fault! I thought it was Pete’s sneaker.”
“Good point,” I said. “But still you can understand—”
“Yes, yes,” said Chester, dropping to the floor and stretching out. Cats have more ways of changing the subject than kids have excuses for not doing their homework.
Seeing that the subject was changed, however, I decided this was the moment to find out the truth.
“Chester, you said something yesterday,” I began.
“Yes, and I’m sorry, Harold. I never should have called you a mindless mutt.”
“Oh, that,” I said. “I wasn’t talking about that.”
“But it was unkind of me,” Chester went on. “Not to mention redundant.”
“It’s all right, Chester. I don’t even hear your insults anymore.”
“You don’t?”
Ignoring Chester’s wounded look, I persevered. “You said that there was no need to worry about Bunnicula anymore, that the matter was under control. What did you mean by that?”
Chester smiled slyly. “I think you know what I mean. Sometimes it’s best to leave certain things unsaid.”
“But—”
Just then, Howie came bounding into the room. “Don’t go in the yard!” he cried out, his voice full of alarm.
“What is it?” I woofed, racing to the window to see what was going on.
“I just finished reading FleshCrawlers number fifty-two, Don’t Go in the Yard. It’s about this boy named Skippy Sapworthy, who moves with his parents into this creepy old house and he’s told never to go into the yard, but one night he—”
“Howie,” Chester said.
“Yes, Pop?”
“The best way to overcome your fear is to face it. Why don’t you and Harold run along and play outside for a while?”
“In the yard?”
“In the yard.”
Howie looked at me. “Want to, Uncle Harold?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t mind a little fresh air,” I told him. “Coming, Chester?”
“Not just now,” said Chester. “There’s something I need to do. But don’t let me stop you. Run along and play.”
It was only moments later as Howie and I were tussling over an old rag in the backyard that Chester’s words hit me.
“What fools!” I exclaimed. “Every day for the last few weeks, Chester has told us to run outside and play and, being the obedient dog-types we are, we do it! Howie, don’t you see?”
Howie looked surprised by my question. “Of course I see, Uncle Harold,” he said. “And I hear and I smell and I taste and I—”
“No, no. I mean, don’t you see what Chester is up to? He’s gotten us out of the house so he can, so he can . . .”
“So he can what?” Howie asked.
I looked at him blankly. “I don’t know,” I said, “but there’s one way to find out.”
As stealthily as we could, we made our way across the yard, through the pet door and into the kitchen, where we were stopped in our tracks by the strangest sound emanating from the living room.
Slurp, slurp, slurp.
Was it Bunnicula, sucking the juice out of vegetables? It couldn’
t be—he was never awake during daylight hours. Suddenly, the terrible truth hit me—it was Chester! Chester had become a vampire! He was sucking the lifeblood out of Bunnicula! That’s why he said there was nothing to worry about anymore. That’s why Bunnicula had become so listless! It was all too beastly to believe, too awful to face, yet I knew I must face it, must fling open the door that separated us, and put an end to Chester’s hideous deeds!
“Be brave,” I told young Howie, without explaining why he would need to be. How could I tell him what lay on the other side of that door, what violation of all that was good and decent accounted for those seemingly innocent slurping sounds?
“Now!” I said, and with Howie at my side, I butted the door open, charged into the living room, and cried out in wild desperation, “The game is up, Chester! I know you’re a vampire! Let the bunny go!”
[ THREE ]
Do Not litter!
“HAVE you completely lost your mind?” Chester asked.
Had I not worked myself up into such a state, I might have asked him the same thing. There he was inside Bunnicula’s cage, all hunched up next to the sleeping rabbit, the hair and whiskers around his lips slick and matted with . . .
Carrot juice?
“Fine, so you’re not a vampire,” I said, trying to sound calm despite my heart’s pounding reminder that I was anything but. “You are drinking Bunnicula’s carrot juice, though, are you not?”
“Past tense, Harold. I just finished.”
“Gee, Pop,” said Howie, “there must be some way to let the Monroes know you like carrot juice, too. You don’t have to drink Bunnicula’s.”
“I don’t like carrot juice, Howie,” Chester said, gingerly stepping over the inert bunny and out of the cage. Carefully locking the door behind him, he jumped down and joined us. “I do not drink it for pleasure. I drink it because I must.”
“Is that why you eat string?” I asked.