Farmer Janis looked at him kindly. “Where do you think lamb chops come from, kid?”
That gave him pause. “I don’t even like lamb chops,” he said.
“How about Ronald MacDoodlemeat’s Extra-Strength Cheeseburgers, then? Or Uncle Cholesterol’s Deeply Fried Chicken Fingers?” Janis added ruthlessly. “You know chickens don’t really have fingers, right?”
“Buck buck buck,” Marie gurgled, and wiggled her chubby digits. “Buck buck buck!”
Nobody spoke. Janis pushed her chair back. “Well, I’m no gambler, but I’d bet a bag of good hayseed that this farm is not going to be in the butchering business any time soon.”
Sally put her hands on Carl’s shoulders just firmly enough to send a calm-down message. “We see ourselves more as plant-based farmers,” she said.
The expression on Farmer Janis’s face was inscrutable. “Plant-based, sure. If it’s gardening you’re after, my advice is to be creative. A gimmick helps. Specialize! One more roadside stand of zucchini is not going to pay the oil bill around here, or the taxes. Grow something special. Something nobody else has.”
“Magic beans?” Carl suggested. He was being sarcastic now, but Janis nodded and patted him on the knee.
“That’s the spirit. And think about what you’ll do in the winter. You don’t have a greenhouse, do you?”
Brad and Sally shook their heads.
“You can’t grow plants in the winter unless you have a greenhouse.” Farmer Janis spoke gently, as one does when talking to the woefully uninformed. “Winter’s a challenge on the farm. I hope your barn’s in good shape. Art Crenshaw was a good farmer and a good friend, but everybody gets old sooner or later. Things slip through the cracks. If you want, we can take a walk out there and inspect it. Chop all the wood you can, when you can! There’s a trick to stacking it so it stays dry. I’ll show you how another day. Right now, I gotta go home and feed my chickens.” She stood up, stretched, and looked at Carl. “Wanna come help me out? Feeding chickens is a real farmer thing to do.”
But the thought of all the chicken fingers he’d eaten in his young life weighed heavily on Carl’s conscience. How many had there been? Hundreds? Thousands? Could he ever wash the stain of all that BBQ sauce off his guilty, sticky hands?
He shook his head, nope.
Farmer Janis seemed to understand. “Not today, huh? No worries. You’ll get plenty of chances. Those birds have to be fed every day, rain or shine, summer and winter, whether you’re in the mood or not. It forms a real bond. They get to be like family.”
“Buck buck buck!” said Marie. She was the only Harvey still smiling. “Buck buck buck!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Alice has a remarkable idea.
Bad news spreads quickly among the nervous, and rabbits are nothing if not that. The mere whisper of the word Mauler started rumors that multiplied quicker than cottontails in springtime. They spread through the warren like the tendrils of a fast-growing vine.
Most of the younger rabbits had held the same mistaken idea as Alice and Thistle. They thought of the Mauler as a made-up monster, an outlandish fiction designed to frighten and thrill. But now the facts were out. Who would have guessed that somewhere on the far end of the food chain, that blessedly unsentimental system that turns sunlight into grass, grass into bunnies, and bunnies into nourishing food for every small, medium, and large carnivore in the valley between the hills, there was some kind of mechanical monster that fed on the very earth itself?
“Rabbitfolk don’t live long,” the cottontails remarked somberly to each other upon hearing the awful news, and “May a hawk take you, in good time.” Then they went about their business. For if the Mauler was real, and the Mauler was coming, then that was a thing that couldn’t be helped. Certainly, Burrow wouldn’t survive it. A few of them might escape, if they managed not to die of terror on the spot, but who could say how far the destruction would reach?
What mattered was that rabbits—not these particular rabbits, perhaps, but rabbits in general—would carry on, somewhere. Far away, perhaps, but somewhere. That’s how the cottontails of Burrow felt, anyway. Once they got over the shock, there wasn’t much else to say or do. Life would continue until it didn’t anymore.
Still, Alice couldn’t stop thinking about it. That evening at dusk, she and Thistle took dinner side by side, in their usual, crepuscular way.
Lester was nearby, teaching the newest batch of kits how to graze—nibble-nibble-nibble, pause and check for danger with an ear swivel (“Use your ears!”) and some rapid-fire sniffing (“Use your nose!”), then back to the tasty grass.
“You remember the story of how Violet lost her ear tip, don’t you?” Alice asked her brother, seemingly out of the blue.
“Yes, of course! I’m so embarrassed, I shouldn’t have brought it up in front of her. It was in one of the old farmer’s traps, wasn’t it? She got caught, and struggled, and she got away somehow, but she had to leave a piece of her ear behind.” Thistle paused and did his own well-practiced nibble-nibble-nibble, ear swivel, sniff-sniff-sniff before going on. “That was long before we were born. Why do you ask?”
Alice also paused to use her ears, use her nose. “I was thinking about the Mauler,” she said.
“Can we not talk about it anymore?” Thistle pleaded. “At least, not during dinner?”
In answer, she hopped in front of him, right on the grass he was trying to nibble-nibble-nibble. “Thistle, hear me out. If the new farmers get caught in the egg-head man’s trap, I don’t think they’ll be able to get away, no matter how they struggle.”
“Because they have no ear tips to leave behind?” Thistle said, quite seriously. To rabbits, it was a wonder humans could hear themselves think, with those absurdly tiny ears of theirs.
“Yes,” said Alice. “Then they’ll rue the day, and the Mauler will come. And that will be the end of Burrow.” Her own ears flattened despairingly against her head. “I don’t want to that happen. We have to stop it.”
“But we can’t stop the Mauler,” Thistle said. “Nothing can! It’s bad! It’s—”
“The worst thing there is, I know. But what if we stopped the farmers from getting trapped in the first place?”
She pressed close to her brother. Together they watched Lester lead the babies in practicing the nibble-nibble-nibble, ear swivel, sniff-sniff-sniff routine, over and over again, until it became second nature. “See those kits?” she said. “They’re true-born rabbits, but they still have to be taught how to do things properly. What if the new farmers are the same?”
Thistle snorted. “They’re not farmers; that’s the whole trouble. The egg-head man said they don’t know the first thing about vegetables.”
“But we do.” Alice’s nose quivered in excitement. “We’re rabbitfolk, after all. And rabbits are way more clever than farmers. Why can’t we run the farm? Perhaps the new farmers can learn from us.”
“You’re joking, I think,” Thistle said, after a moment. To be fair, the silent-laughter issue meant it wasn’t easy to tell when a cottontail was kidding. Good manners dictated a quick tail shimmy accompany any attempt to be funny, and a longer tail shimmy from the listeners to show laughter, if they were amused. Alice’s tail hadn’t budged. Instead, her whiskers flared with excitement as the idea took shape in her mind.
“I’m not joking,” she insisted. “If we rabbits can sneak into a garden to steal vegetables, surely we could sneak in to grow vegetables. Then the farmers won’t rue the day, the egg-head man will leave, the Mauler won’t come, and life here in Burrow and the valley between the hills will go on and on, season after season, just like it does now.”
Thistle was naturally inclined to think his sister was more clever than a crow, but now he did a wild double flip of joy, jumping straight up and kicking his feet together in the air.
“Alice! You’re a genius!” he cried.
“Stop all that cavorting, young ’un! You’ll wake the owls for sure, and there’s a litt
er of babies just behind you that don’t yet know a zig from a zag.” Old Lester’s hops were getting shorter by the day. Sometimes he didn’t even bother, and walked in a shuffling waddle. That’s how he approached them now.
“Pish-posh, Lester!” Thistle sounded like Foxy when he said it. “It’s not dark yet. The owls are still asleep. Listen to Alice! She’s going to save the valley, the hills, Burrow, everything!”
“She is, eh?” Lester looked dubious, and Alice told the old rabbit her plan. When she was done, he growled, and his yellow teeth chattered with disbelief.
“Of all the rodent-brained ideas!” he exclaimed. (“Rodent-brained” is a very rude insult among rabbits and quite unfair to rodents, who have perfectly good brains. Rats are known to be especially sharp-witted, although not always sharp enough to avoid colliding with the wheels of an expensive Italian-made stroller when crossing a Brooklyn sidewalk.) “Rabbits can’t be farmers! Why, that’s colluding with the enemy. Where’s the cottontail pride in that?”
“Same place it’s always been,” said Alice, with growing enthusiasm. “Being clever and crafty! Tricky and hard to catch! Think of it this way, Lester: Once you brave the meadow, dodge the dog, outwit the farmer, and tunnel beneath the garden fence, what difference does it make what you do once you’re inside?”
“No fence can stop a one of us, and no trap can catch us all,” Thistle piped up. This was an old cottontail proverb that he’d most likely learned from Lester.
“No fence can stop us; no, sir … you’re right about that, young ’un…” Lester grew quiet, for Alice’s words had touched his very core. What self-respecting rabbit wouldn’t hop at the chance to be tricky and hard to catch, zigzagging with merry confidence through a world full of predators and peril? This particular adventure may have come too late for a weary-legged, gray-whiskered flop-ears like Lester—but it wasn’t too late for a young ’un to graze on glory, and hop on high for all that a rabbit stood for, no, sir!
Alice could tell the old rabbit was coming around by the way his back feet began to twitch. “And they’ll never know it’s us doing the farming! You can still sneak into a garden, can’t you, Lester?” she teased.
The old bunny’s chest puffed with pride. “You bet I can! At least, in my ‘salad days,’ I could.” He paused and shimmied his tail to show he’d made a joke. “Sneaking in and sneaking out, hmm? Outwitting the farmers, eh? I like the way you think, young ’un.” For a moment it looked like Lester was close to a celebratory hop himself.
“She’s clever, isn’t she, Lester?” Thistle said, wriggling with excitement.
“She’s a cottontail! We’re all clever, it can’t be helped. Some are more clever than others, maybe,” Lester added, a grudging compliment. His tail shimmied once more, to indicate a chuckle. “Boy, oh boy! What a change of outlook this will be! Rabbits being farmers! Rabbits growing vegetables! Of all the crazy, unnatural things.”
“Can we steal a few vegetables, though?” Thistle begged. “A radish top? A single baby carrot?”
“No.” Alice was firm. “We have to think like the farmers do. We want the vegetables to grow so the farmer-people can…” She paused. “Lester, what do farmers do with vegetables, anyway?”
“They sell them,” he replied. “They bring them to market and turn them into money.”
Here he had to pause to explain what money was, as Alice and Thistle had never heard of such a thing. Lester’s own understanding was far from complete, but he did know two things about it: first, that money consisted of small circles of metal and rectangles of dry, tough paper, very hard to chew; and second, that money was the whole point of nearly everything people did.
“Turning perfectly good food into money squeezes all the juice out of it, in my opinion,” he concluded. “I’d rather have a nice bushel of spinach, myself.”
“Then we’ll grow you some,” Alice said, full of the confidence that comes of contemplating a great adventure that hasn’t yet begun. “But you’ll have to pay us money for it. Because we’re going to be farmers now, too!”
* * *
“Look at me, Marie! I’ve got a golden parachute! I’ve got a golden parachute!” The dog ran back and forth in long semicircles, showing off the new bright yellow reflective doggy vest that Brad had purchased for her at the big hardware store in town.
The vest had been Sally’s idea. She wouldn’t let the dog set one paw outdoors without it, after what Mr. Rowes had said about hunters mistaking Foxy for a fox. It was the day after their rude encounter with Tom Rowes. All that new information had had a powerful effect on the Harvey parents, but it wasn’t the same effect: Sally was much more worried now than she’d been previously, while Brad had grown less so. If anything, he was feeling cocksure and ready for a fight.
This led to some misunderstandings between them. For example, she’d wanted him to get yellow vests for Carl and Marie, too, but Brad said she was making way too much of that whole unpleasant encounter with Mr. Rowes. The man was rude, no question, but he was in the business of making money first and foremost. Brad had known many such characters at his old job—he called them “clients”—and understood that people like that tended to bulldoze over the social niceties.
Sally was not one bit comforted by this and had offered two observations in return: Number one, good manners were not the only thing that awful man wanted to bulldoze. Number two, maybe they should have thought more carefully about the fact that they had no clue how to run a farm, as was made painfully clear by that illuminating visit from Farmer Janis.
Well, that was a whole other conversation, Brad replied, which they should certainly have at a later time, when Sally wasn’t so busy overreacting. But overreacting was a poor word choice on Brad’s part, as it made Sally doubly convinced that Brad wasn’t seeing the seriousness of their predicament at all. The rest of Brad’s day would be spent digging himself out of that particular hole—after he got back from the hardware store with the dog-sized yellow vest, of course.
Dogs have much better hearing than humans, and Foxy had gotten the gist of the previous day’s events despite being locked in Carl’s room for most of it. She wasn’t angry at Carl about the accidental imprisonment. The boy had simply run out to chase a tractor. Frankly, she was proud of him, as Foxy approved of chasing vehicles in principle, though she’d never had the chance to do it herself.
Now she was tied with a long swivel-leash to a post in the backyard, in partial view of the kitchen. The Harveys couldn’t have known that Old Man Crenshaw used to tie up his dog here, too, but a sturdy backyard post with a metal ring conveniently screwed on top spoke for itself. “Tie a dog to me,” it said, and so Brad Harvey threatened to, sternly, when he discovered what Foxy had done to Carl’s room while she’d been locked in and forgotten. She’d gouged deep claw marks on the door and chewed a hole in a pillow that sent feathers flying everywhere. Buck-buck, buck-buck, buck-buck—soon the whole family was saying it, as they cleaned up the downy mess.
But first the dog needed a yellow vest, Sally insisted, and that’s how that got started.
As always, Foxy was deeply touched by how sweet her humans were, and how much they’d enjoyed the amusing feather-gathering game she’d provided. Look how nicely they’d thanked her! They’d put her outside, with her own new yellow cape to show just how special she was. It was the closest thing to a golden parachute around, and Foxy was the one who got to wear it, which was just as it should be. She wouldn’t have minded a Spearmint-Flavored GlitterTooth Chew-Bone, either, but perhaps she’d get one later.
Marie was outside, too, buckled in her swing seat, chortling at the dog’s antics. Carl slouched in a canvas camping chair next to the swing seat. He was supposed to be watching his sister and Foxy while his mom finished up a project in the kitchen, but since both baby and dog were tethered, the job didn’t require much of his attention.
Instead, he played on a handheld game console of a type so prehistoric they didn’t make it anymore. His dad ha
d found it in the barn during the inspection that Janis had urged, buried in a pile of old tools and broken metal things. Brad had cleaned it up and put fresh batteries in it. Miraculously, it worked. Had Old Man Crenshaw played it? Carl couldn’t imagine such a thing. Maybe the old guy had a great-great-great-grandchild who’d visited now and then.
“Wheeeee!” Foxy cried, zooming back and forth to the full length of the leash in a wide arc. “My parachute is a streak of purest gold, pulsing through the firmament!”
“Stop barking, Foxy,” Carl said absently.
Marie shoved her fists into her eyes, she was laughing so hard.
“Chute!” she yelled. “Fa ma mint!!”
“You said it, Marie! I haven’t felt this fancy since Carlsbad put me in that bumblebee costume last Halloween!” Foxy galloped one more truncated lap, then slammed on the brakes. She arched her back in a play bow and snarled at the sky just for fun, then sat in front of Marie and scratched beneath the yellow vest with her hind leg. “This front strap itches, I must say. The price one pays for being stylish!”
“Me, me.” Marie kicked her feet in Foxy’s direction.
“Aren’t you a sweet little dumpling to offer! But those mushy toes of yours are of no use; my fur is much too thick and luxurious for them to penetrate. A job like this calls for—ahhhhhh—claws.” Foxy tipped her head to the side and closed her eyes in bliss as she found the spot with her back foot. “Ahhhhhh! I believe the other side could use some attention, too. Thank goodness I’m flexible…”
Carl looked up, bored. His dad had called the console “eight-bit,” but the game was just dumb. He’d already tried texting Emmanuel, but there was no signal. That Crenshaw guy must have been pretty eight-bit himself. He hadn’t rigged the place with any modern conveniences—no cable, no internet of any kind, not even a rooftop antenna for regular TV. What did that old farmer do all day long, anyway?
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