“Well, Mrs. Bunny,” he said, coming in all pink-cheeked and proud of himself. “I have a great surprise for you.”
“You have found a realtor,” said Mrs. Bunny, dishing him up a nice steaming bowl of carrot stew, then joining him at the table.
“Better! I have bought us a new hutch!” said Mr. Bunny. “The deed is done! We can move in next week!”
There was a stunned silence.
“Well?” said Mr. Bunny finally. “I thought you’d be hopping around with happiness.”
Mrs. Bunny, who had gotten up to get Mr. Bunny some bread, sat down again with a thump.
“No bread?” asked Mr. Bunny, who sometimes wasn’t very good at telling from which direction the wind blew.
Mrs. Bunny put her head down on the table.
“Uh-oh,” said Mr. Bunny.
They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the ticking of the clock. Finally Mr. Bunny lifted Mrs. Bunny’s ears so he could see her face and try to tell exactly what kind of mood she had fallen prey to.
“Mrs. Bunny?” he whispered. “Hello, hello, anyone in there?”
“Mr. Bunny,” said Mrs. Bunny finally.
“Yes? For so I am called,” said Mr. Bunny.
“Hutch buying is something rabbits do IN PAIRS.”
“Mrs. Bunny, I am sure you are only hungry. Once you have a little carrot stew in you, this mood of yours will pass in a trice.”
“DON’T TELL ME ABOUT MY MOODS!” began Mrs. Bunny, and that is when Mr. Bunny, in one of his few smart moves that day, pulled out the picture of the hutch and shoved it in her face.
“SEE?” said Mr. Bunny, a trifle hysterically. “SEE?”
Mrs. Bunny did see—a sweet little thatched white cottage with light blue shutters and a light blue door. There was a lovely wreath around the door knocker and roses twining about the gate.
“You see,” said Mr. Bunny. “It is as sweet and adorable as Mrs. Bunny herself.”
“How many bedrooms?”
“Three. One for us and two for any Bunnys who come back to visit. It is unlikely we will ever see all twelve at the same time.”
Mrs. Bunny began to look sad, so Mr. Bunny distracted her by telling her again that the hutch was as sweet as she was. “Also, therealeastateagentsaiditwillprobablytakeaverylongtimetosellourhousebecausebunniesaren’tbuyinginthemountainsanymore. You ARE so sweet, Mrs. Bunny. You should have a hutch as sweet as you.” Yeah, he said to himself craftily, bury the lead.
“Nothing could be that sweet,” said Mrs. Bunny. Then she studied the picture more closely. “But it is nice. Of course, the former owners will take that wreath with them. That will detract from its sweetness a bit.”
“Oh no, that’s the kicker,” said Mr. Bunny. “They’re leaving such things behind.”
“Well …,” said Mrs. Bunny, unwilling to let Mr. Bunny off a hook she had him so securely hung from, “I admit that from outside appearances it seems … nice.”
“Nice, Mrs. Bunny? Nice? How many times has Mr. Bunny heard you say that if you ever found a house with both bird-baths and garden gnomes you would move right in?”
“Is it marmot-free?”
“Well, no place is marmot-free, Mrs. Bunny. Let us not dwell in fools’ paradises.”
“We shall have to buy furniture!” said Mrs. Bunny, determined to find a fly in the ointment, and now she had, because Mr. Bunny, in his honeymoon period with Krazy Glue, had glued all their furniture to the floor. “That will cost money.” Mr. Bunny did so hate to spend money.
“Au contraire! I was saving the best for last! The former owners disappeared rather suddenly, so the house is to be sold fully furnished. And I have it on the best authority that the house is brimming, absolutely brimming, Mrs. Bunny, with country-cottage-style antiques. When I asked the realtor if they could be decoupaged he said they were fairly begging for it.”
“He would. Besides, Mr. Bunny, the decoupage phase is over, in case you had not noticed. That train has left the station,” said Mrs. Bunny crushingly.
“Or just as lovely not decoupaged,” said Mr. Bunny hastily. He never could keep track of Mrs. Bunny’s hobbies. She was a bunny of sudden short-lived enthusiasms. “I myself enjoy an unpainted piece of furniture, so this fails to disappoint me. Well, Mrs. Bunny, have I not found the perfect hutch despite your crankiness and many unreasonable demands?”
“Hmm.” Then something new struck her. It struck her like a gong. Her long and fuzzy ears quivered. “Mr. Bunny, you say that these bunnies disappeared?”
“Did I say that?” asked Mr. Bunny, looking suddenly nervous.
“Your very words.”
“Well, uh—”
“And where did you say this hutch was? This hutch so suddenly vacated by the previous bunnies? Vacated so hastily that all the furniture and whatnots were included.”
“Uh—”
“Where, Mr. Bunny? Out with it.”
“Rabbitville, down in the Cowichan Valley. A charming valley of mild and temperate climate.”
“And foxes!”
“Oh, Mrs. Bunny, rumors, idle chitchat, tittle-tattle.”
“I would lay odds, Mr. Bunny, that foxes is what happened to these former owners.”
“I’m sure if that were the case the realtor would have mentioned it.”
“I’m sure he would not. Tell me, Mr. Bunny, did they also leave all their clothes, these previous owners?”
“Yes, and a fine automobile,” said Mr. Bunny.
“Foxes. You may be sure of it,” said Mrs. Bunny. “Bunnies do not leave their clothes to be sold as part of the house unless they have met with a bad end.”
“Oh well, look at lightning,” said Mr. Bunny. “Never strikes in the same place twice.”
“Lightning does not strike twice, Mr. Bunny; foxes, on the other hand, probably regard the houses in Rabbitville as a strip of fast-food joints. I, personally, don’t want to be someone’s Big Mac.”
“Nonsense. Don’t you think we’d have heard if there was a large fox problem? It certainly would be in the Bunny Gazette.”
“Oh well, I suppose done is done,” said Mrs. Bunny, cheerfully digging into her carrot stew.
“Oh, and Mrs. Bunny?” said Mr. Bunny, after he had finished his stew in welcome silence. “I forgot to tell you the best part.”
“There’s more?” said Mrs. Bunny, not without sarcasm.
“Yes, a great deal more. You know how you have always wanted to hop around a manor hutch?”
“Yes?” said Mrs. Bunny.
“Like in those Bunny Austen books you read where rabbits live in great parks with manor hutches?”
“Yes?”
“Well, there’s a manor house right up the road.”
“A hutch or a house?” asked Mrs. Bunny.
“Well, it is a house. It is a human habitat. But still …”
“Yes, still …,” said Mrs. Bunny, dropping her spoon in delight and forgetting to look disapproving. There was never much chance of getting invited into a human house. You either ended up as dinner or a pet. But she did so want to see the inside of one of these places.
Mr. Bunny smiled. He had her now. “Yes. By my fuzzy ears and whiskers, a manor house for Mrs. Bunny to obsess over. And to think, we’ll be able to see it from our own garden! We have a splendid view of the whole valley. I can putter around with my saws and hammers. You can join some clubs. And we can settle back and wait for the baby Bunnys to come visit with their own baby bunnies someday, perhaps.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Bunny in a frenzy of ecstasy. “Mr. Bunny, you have done well!”
“Yes, I have, Mrs. Bunny, and now we can spend the rest of our days leading a peaceful quiet life.”
But that was where Mr. Bunny was wrong.
LUMINARA
Madeline and Mildred and Flo gathered on the front porch as the neighbors started arriving.
It was the tradition on Luminara for everyone
to trip from house to house viewing everyone else’s luminaries. The children paraded their paper lanterns from one end of the island to the next. After they were put to bed, the adults had their own lantern walk.
Madeline had always loved Luminara; even now, upset as she was to have had all her shoe money spent on candles, she couldn’t help feeling a thrill to see her neighbors dressed in the traditional Luminara costumes, long white gauzy dresses for the women, velvet breeches or white robes (their pick) for the men. The children, dressed as fairies and butterflies and gauzy birds, becoming for a few hours the small winged creatures of the night.
Mildred offered everyone cheese straws made with locally sourced organic raw milk cheese while Flo kept asking who was available for the marimba band. Everyone on Hornby played the marimba, and several played ukuleles.
“Want to play in the marimba band tonight, Madeline? Oh, and Zanky said that KatyD asked if you’d help out tonight at the Happy Goat? Sunshine can’t come in, she’s sick. I said that you probably didn’t want to miss Luminara. And you’d probably rather make music than money.”
Shoe money! Madeline thought.
“You’ll miss the lantern walk with the other children,” said Mildred.
“Why don’t I stay up for the adult one and go with you? You know, Flo, you almost got lost in the dark last year and I had to come out with a flashlight and find you.”
“Oh yeah,” said Flo. “Well, sure, Mildred and I always say you’re the adult in the family.”
Madeline went inside and changed into her gauzy white Luminara dress and then skedaddled to the café. When she got there KatyD said, “Thank goodness. I’ve been trying to cook and waitress. All the tables and both stumps are filled and people keep coming.”
“Where is our hummus?” an angry woman screamed just before the goat walked over and peed on her.
“What did your goat just do?” spluttered the woman, standing up in disbelief.
She must be visiting the island, thought Madeline. Anyone who came to the Happy Goat regularly knew that the goat was always peeing on people. No one ever got used to it, exactly, but no one ever did anything about it either.
“Madeline, grab her some paper napkins, and then start taking orders,” called KatyD, who was trying to wash dishes and crumble tofu all at once.
Madeline gave the woman a handful of napkins and a sympathetic look, but the woman just dried herself off and stomped angrily away. Madeline didn’t have time to worry about it. People coming in from other islands to see the luminaries were lining up for a table or stump. Before long she was serving them on the ground as families grabbed menus and sat down wherever there was space and the goat hadn’t peed.
At ten o’clock KatyD closed the café and handed Madeline a fistful of dollars. “Want me to walk you home?”
“That’s okay, the road is lit with luminaries,” said Madeline. She could hardly wait to get alone and count her money. She was sure she had enough for shoes.
It was gloaming when she left the café, but by the time she came to the path in the woods it was full dark. The giant moon glimmered as if it were a luminary itself, awash in orange candlelight. Stars twinkled. The woods, lit from within, glowed with a faint green phosphorus light. She bet if you could look at the earth from space, it would be glittering too, a giant planetary luminary.
She sat right down for a second in the middle of the woods to enjoy it all.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Madeline, back at her house, sinister forces were at work. A car had just pulled into the driveway and four foxes dressed in trench coats, scarves and sunglasses had gotten out. The fox in the center, the Grand Poobah, as he was known, carried a small file card box. The other foxes surrounded him as he walked straight up to Flo and Mildred, who were busy reassembling a giant luminary that had toppled over.
“Hail, humans!” said the Grand Poobah. Actually what he said was “Hail, hoomans!” He had just learned English, and he insisted that all the foxes do likewise, as humans would inevitably be too stupid to understand Fox. But his reading vocabulary was larger than his speaking vocabulary, so that he made the occasional pronunciation mistake.
“Oh, look,” said Mildred, grabbing Flo’s arm. “One of the families has dressed up in fox costumes. Isn’t that adorable?”
“Cool, man,” said Flo, going up to greet them and pulling gently at one of the foxes’ fur. “Where’d you get the duds, man?”
“OUCH!” screamed the fox. “Poobah, make him stop.”
“Now, now, be nice. We come in peace. Ahem! Ladies and gentlemen,” began the Grand Poobah, for this was how he had heard humans address each other on TV. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in need of assistance. You see, we are opening a factory soon. Fanny Fox’s Canned Rabbit Products and By-products. Fanny Fox, perhaps the greatest chef of all time, finally gave consent for us to mass-produce all her rabbit recipes. We have here her full collection on handy-dandy file cards.” He pointed to the box he was carrying. “Unfortunately, last night Fanny died.”
“Tough break, dude, but at least you’ve got the recipes,” said Flo. He turned to Mildred. “Man, what was in those cheese straws? These can’t be people dressed in fox costumes. Unless they’re, like, little people.”
“Tough break indeed,” said the Grand Poobah, ignoring Flo’s last comment. “Fanny loved the idea of becoming famous. She was so proud of having the factory named after her that she had recipe cards and stationery engraved with the factory name and logo at the top. And because she planned to sell to you hoomans, she had the factory name done in English as well as Fox. Very considerate, we foxes are.”
“Maybe,” said Flo. “But what the heck is a hooman?”
“She had the logo tattooed on her paws,” piped up one of the bodyguards. “She was, like, nuts when it came to that logo.”
“Speak when you are spoken to, Filbert,” said the Grand Poobah. “And try not to adopt the hooman’s verbal tics. Flo, a hooman is you, man, mwa-haha!”
“I didn’t know that foxes were, like, so commercial,” said Flo.
“Foxes are titans of industry. Have you never heard of Fox Studios? Fox Television? You didn’t think it was owned by hoomans, did you? I myself could have been a movie star. As you see, I have the exceedingly good looks and overweening ego, but, alas, someone had to stay and take care of the den.”
The Grand Poobah stopped and batted his long eyelashes. Then he realized they couldn’t be seen behind his sunglasses, so he took them off and batted his eyelashes again, first at Flo and then at Mildred. They continued to stare blankly.
“But back to matters at hand,” the Grand Poobah said, clearing his throat and putting his sunglasses back on. “We have the recipes, true, but we can’t read the recipes. Fanny was always terrified that someone from a rival firm would steal them, so she wrote them all in code.”
He opened the box and took out one of the file cards to show Flo and Mildred. On the top was engraved FANNY FOX’S CANNED RABBIT PRODUCTS AND BY-PRODUCTS FACTORY. There was a logo of a fox trying to cram a protesting rabbit into a pressure cooker.
Mildred flinched. “I’m a vegan myself,” she said.
“Of course you are,” said the Grand Poobah. “And your IQ is well under one hundred. Don’t worry, we know all about hoomans. We’ve been studying your sitcoms. And we know all about the vegans. Interesting choice. Vegetables and grasses. Foxes, of course, prefer meat.”
He smiled at them. It was a cruel smile that made the most of his prominent canines. The thought of meat had caused a little line of drool to escape his mouth and make its way down his chin. Mildred flinched again.
“Did someone say something about, uh, grasses?” asked Flo, whose attention had flagged. “I’m not a vegan. Anyone want a cheese straw? The milk is locally sourced.”
Mildred studied the card some more. Underneath the factory name and logo were a series of wiggles and swirls. She passed the card to Flo.
“What’s that, like, Fox alphabet?” a
sked Flo.
“Fox alphabet?” barked the Grand Poobah, and then recovered himself. “No, my dear sir, that is code. Unbreakable code, so it seems. That is why we have come to you. I have a cousin who lives in the woods by Ottawa who keeps track of government goings-on. It is, as I’m sure you can understand, important for our species to keep tabs on your species to see what little nasty thing you’re going to be up to next. He found out some interesting items. One is that there are several decoder scientists sprinkled around Canada.”
“Ha! Runyon said he was the only one! Ha!” said Flo.
“No, babe, he said he was the best one,” said Mildred.
“Well, here is the salient point,” interrupted the Grand Poobah, who was really losing patience with them and also thinking their fingers would make tasty snack food. “He is the closest one. To have a decoder actually on Vancouver Island is enormously convenient. Foxes hate to travel.”
“The ferry was loathsome,” said one of the bodyguard foxes. “I thought I was like to die.”
“And we had to stay in the car the whole time with its blackened windows so as not to arouse suspicions,” said another fox. “I got seasick.”
“I had to use the bathroom,” said another.
“I wanted a chocolate bar. They have vending machines on the ferry and I could have snuck inside without anyone seeing me. Foxes are very stealthy and humans never notice anything anyway. They’re way too busy with their cell phones and iPods, but he wouldn’t let us.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up, all of you,” said the Grand Poobah. “Now, unfortunately, for all my Ottawa cousin’s snooping, he couldn’t obtain the decoder’s exact address. That, apparently, is a secret. It is rumored this decoder is somewhere in the Cowichan Valley, where we are starting our factory. Très coincidental, n’est-ce pas? Our foxy Ottawa snoop did find out the address of the decoder’s nearest relatives. That was no secret. And so, you see, here we are with you. And you, of course, will tell us where to find this relative of yours because we have been so friendly and haven’t once munched on your digits, no matter how great the temptation.” Another line of drool escaped the Poobah’s lips and began its trail down his furry chin.
Mr. and Mrs. Bunny—Detectives Extraordinaire! Page 2