Sky's Surprise

by Catherine Coe

  The commentator started speaking again before anyone could reply. “Take your places, Bouncers, for the final event: the Bright Burrow Bouncy Big Bounce!” Excited murmurs buzzed all around Hay Arena.

  “Oh flippety-flop!” squealed Twinkle. “I’ve got to go. Sky, you have to come with me!”

  Twinkle grabbed Sky’s paw and began leaping down the haystack steps, dragging Sky behind him. “What’s going on?” Sky asked, feeling very confused as Twinkle pulled her along. There was no way she’d be able to join in Bounce-a-Lot as a Bouncer now. It was far too late.

  They reached the field where a large, round trampoline had been placed in the center. But Twinkle didn’t stop—he kept on running, tugging Sky behind him, all the way across the grass and up the steps on the other side of the stadium.

  “Hey, Twinkle, where are we going?” panted Sky, feeling very hot under her thick blue fur. For a tiny bunny, Twinkle could run very fast.

  Finally, Twinkle stopped on a haystack step, and beckoned Sky into an area next to the Bouncer Box. Inside, a huge gray bunny—even bigger than Petal—stood in front of a microphone. “That’s lucky, Twinkle, you’re just in time,” the bunny said in a deep, booming voice. “Is this your friend?”

  Twinkle nodded and squeaked, “Yes! This is Sky. Sky, this is Chatsworth, the commentator.”

  Chatsworth grinned, making his long gray whiskers stretch out wide. “And now, Sky, it’s over to you!” He hopped aside.

  “What do you mean?” Sky chirped.

  Twinkle was bouncing from foot to foot and beaming so hard his smile reached his ears. “Sky, you’re going to do the commentary on the last event!” Twinkle explained. “How furbulous is that?”

  Sky stared at Twinkle, then at the microphone, then at Chatsworth, then back to Twinkle again. “No way! Really? You don’t mind, Chatsworth?”

  Chatsworth shook his head. “I’ve spoken so much today that I’ve almost lost my voice. I’m very happy for you to do it!”

  “And this way you can still be in Bounce-a-Lot, even if you’re not bouncing!” Twinkle said, then he paused and put a paw on Sky’s arm. “I mean, if you want to,” he said.

  Sky stared at the microphone some more. “I’d LOVE to!” she yelled.

  Twinkle did a jump and spin of happiness.

  Chatsworth clapped his large paws together. “You’d better get started. The teams are waiting!” He showed Sky where to stand and how to speak into the microphone. “Just press this button when you’re ready,” he said.

  Sky took the deepest of breaths and tried not to think too much about the hundreds of bunnies in the crowd. Instead, she imagined she was talking about the events to her friends, just like normal.

  “Bunnies young and old,” Sky began, remembering how the commentator always started. “Are you READY? Are you STEADY? It’s time for the final event—the Bright Burrow Bouncy Big Bounce!”

  Everyone in the stadium squeaked and clapped and cheered as the teams lined up behind the huge trampoline. Chatsworth held up a piece of barknote for Sky to read.

  “The first Bouncer to try her luck on the trampoline is Star,” Sky announced as she read the first name on the list. “Will Star reach for the stars, bunnies?” The crowd laughed at Sky’s joke as they looked down at the golden figure of Star hopping onto the trampoline. Star strode to the middle, crouched down carefully, and then sprung … up, up, up, she went—even higher than the walls of Hay Arena.

  “Ooh, what a start!” said Sky into the microphone. “Get it: Star-t?” Some of the crowd laughed, and some of the crowd groaned, but everyone was smiling. Sky’s fluffy fur prickled with excitement. This was the best surprise ever, and actually more fun than being a Bouncer, because she loved talking and telling jokes even more than she loved jumping. She felt like the luckiest bunny in Bright Burrow. Sky continued with her commentary, including as many jokes as she possibly could. When a white bunny with a red tail did his bounce, Sky made a joke about him looking just like a rocket with his tail as the flames. And when it was Twinkle’s turn, Sky compared him to a fluffy green firework, which made Twinkle laugh while he was still midbounce!

  After the last Bouncer had bounced, and the crowd had stood up and cheered all the fantastic teams, Chatsworth showed Sky another barknote. “It’s time for the Best Bouncer Team award,” he explained in his deep voice.

  Sky looked at the note and nearly squealed. She leaned forward into the microphone again and said, “Bunnies young and old, the Best Bouncer Team award this year goes to …” Sky paused, and every single bunny in the stadium waited in silence until she continued, “The Oak Class team!”

  Hay Arena erupted into cheers. On the field below, Twinkle, Star, and the other Bouncers from their class high-pawed one another. It was an extra-special moment, because their class had never won the award before.

  “It means your whole class gets to go to the Bounce-a-Lot after-party at Carrot Central,” Chatsworth said. “But before you go, I wanted to say very well done. You did an excellent job on the commentary. If you’re not a Bouncer next year, how about we do it together?”

  Sky hopped with happiness. “Ooh, I’d love to!” she said, and threw her fluffy blue arms around Chatsworth’s legs. “Thank you for letting me join in today.”

  Sky waved goodbye to Chatsworth and then scampered down from the commentary box to find her friends. Diamond, Ruby, and Petal were waiting for Sky at the entrance of Hay Arena.

  “You were exceptional!” said Petal. She gave Sky such a strong hug that Sky could hardly breathe, pressed up to Petal’s tummy fur.

  When Petal finally let go, Ruby and Diamond lifted their paws and Sky high-pawed them both at the same time.

  “Are you sure I was really okay?” asked Sky, twitching her nose. “I mean, I had the best time, but what about everyone in the crowd? It wasn’t boring, was it?”

  “Boring?” said Diamond. “No! You made it even more fun than normal.”

  Ruby put her mouth to Sky’s ear and whispered, “You were way better than the usual commentator. He totally gets bunnies’ names wrong, but you didn’t make any mistakes!”

  They reached the giant carrot towers of Carrot Central. For once, there was no line around the circular field, and the bunnies were let straight in at the gate when they said they were in Oak Class. “Ooh, bunny balloons!” Sky chirruped as she spotted multicolored balloon rabbits tied up all around the field. “Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to each take one home!”

  As soon as they were inside, they crouched down and pulled up a carrot in each paw. By the time the friends started munching on the sweet, crunchy carrots, new ones were already growing in their places.

  “Hey, this is amazing,” Sky declared as a bunny waiter offered her a piece of carrot crunch cake. She thanked him, took the cake in one paw, and pulled up another carrot from the ground with the other. Another one popped up in the same place immediately.

  “Look, there’s Star and Twinkle.” Diamond pointed across the field with one of her carrots. Their two friends were skipping toward them.

  They congratulated Twinkle and Star on a fantastic Bounce-a-Lot. “You were wonderful!” Sky said to them both.

  “You were an excellent commentator!” Star told Sky.

  “Did you enjoy it, Sky?” Twinkle squeaked.

  “I loved it!” Sky said, through a mouthful of carrot. “Thank you!”

  “Wait a minute,” said Ruby, her brown eyes peering at Sky strangely. “What about your toothache?”

  Sky looked down at the carrot in one paw and the cake in the other. “Ooh, it’s disappeared,” she said. “That’s lucky!”

  You’re in luck!

  Read on for a sneak peek at what the hoppiest, floppiest, pluckiest, luckiest bunnies around are getting up to next!

  Petal couldn’t stay still as she sat behind her log desk at school on Monday morning. Her fluffy pink tail twitched and her long, floppy ears flicked from side to side.

  “Petal, do you need the bath
room?” Mr. Nibble asked from his desk at the front of the classroom. As usual, the teacher was eating something. Today, it was a parsnip almost the size of him.

  “No, no!” Petal squeaked. “Not at all. I am absolutely fine!”

  From her desk next to Petal, Diamond frowned. Petal didn’t look fine. It wasn’t that she looked unhappy. In fact, she was smiling. She just looked as if she was bursting to do something! Diamond wondered what it might be.

  She didn’t have to wait long to find out. When the bell rang for playtime, Petal hopped from her desk as if there were a firework under her tail. She called to her friends to follow her out from their classroom, which was inside a large oak tree trunk.

  “Diamond, Ruby, Star, Twinkle, and Sky, come on!” Petal pulled on her friends’ paws to drag them outside. The six bunnies scampered out into the dandelion field that surrounded Dandelion School. The school was made up of five classes—with each classroom inside the trunk of a different tree.

  “Ta-da!” Petal said, and she held up five things high above her pink head. As Petal was the tallest of the friends, the others couldn’t quite see what they were.

  “Ooh, is it a magic trick?” Sky asked. She flipped into the air to get a better look and saw there were five dock-leaf envelopes in Petal’s paws.

  Petal shook her head, making her gigantic floppy ears flap around her. “No, it’s not a magic trick—they’re invitations!”

  Twinkle clapped his tiny mint-green paws together. “Invitations?” he squealed. “How furbulous! What are they for?”

  Petal brought down her paws and passed the envelopes out to her friends. “You’ll have to open them to find out!” she said.

  Catherine Coe is the author of over thirty books for children, including the chapter book series The Owls of Blossom Wood and its companion series, The Unicorns of Blossom Wood. Originally from England, she now resides with her husband in Stockholm, Sweden.

  Hop into

  every adventure!

  #1 Sky’s Surprise

  #2 Petal’s Party

  Text copyright © 2020 by Catherine Coe

  Illustrations by Chie Boyd, copyright © 2020 by Scholastic Inc.

  Photos ©: cover font and throughout: Yuzach/Shutterstock.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing 2020

  Cover art by Chie Boyd, © 2020 Scholastic Inc.

  Cover design by Stephanie Yang

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-59248-1

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