Stupid Rabbit
"Stupid Rabbit."
Friday afternoon was often busy on the M11 as the commuter cars slid intolerably slowly out of the London roads and joined the stationary lines of traffic that built up like blocks of steaming metal. This lulled somewhat after a couple of hours and then it was evening time.
On the evening of the third of July, Julian Weatherby and Hamish Hancock were sat at the top of the slope that led down to the road itself.. They were sat keenly, watching the motorway, like shorter, modern, railway children.
"Just saw another one!" cried Hamish, his chin wobbling in delight, pointing possessively down to the road.
Julian squinted his eyes and exhaled through his nose. "No you didn't."
"Yeah! Yeah, I did!" insisted Hamish pompously. He began jeering round at Julian as he was prone to do. "That's nine now that I've seen."
"It's seven, you liar!" retorted Julian, feeling rather cross. "That last one you saw didn't count either. It only counts if - "
Just then, Hamish batted the air beside Julian frantically with his glow stick; one of the universal indicators for simultaneous 'hush' and 'attention'. Both boys looked down to the road in time to see the rabbit disappear under the wheels of a transit van.
"EIGHT!" Hamish burst out laughing, clapping his hands together as he rolled onto his back briefly before rolling back up again. Julian scored it alongside the other seven. "Stupid rabbit! Come on, it's getting late and we still have to cycle back through the Warren Copse."
"So...why do so many rabbits do it?" asked Julian as the two of them peddled their way up along the dim public footpath that ran along the field. "If that's eight tonight, altogether that makes forty five in the last two weeks. That's a mass suicide. Do you reckon some of them are even ready to go?"
"It's the headlights, you idiot!" teased Hamish, starting to pant slightly as he pressed on and cycled in front of Julian. Julian always forgot how 'ironic' statements were quite often lost on Hamish who had no idea how to be anything but blunt. "Rabbits freeze in headlights, everyone knows that."
"Yeah but why?" repeated Julian, beginning to regret asking. Hamish didn't know anything. He was just a tubby, loud mouthed boy who always thought he was right. And, coincidentally, who had the same birthday as Julian, which was the fourth of July. As far back as Julian could remember, there had been Hamish, stealing his chocolate, talking through all of his favourite programmes and making fun of Julian whenever he could.
When they got to the Warren Copse, the gloaming was already fast approaching. Hamish scrambled ungracefully off his bicycle, let it drop with a soft thud to the shoddy earth while he got down onto his front and began to take a few things out of his rucksack. A lengthy piece of string, a scrap of paper with a diagram on it, and what looked like wire.
"What are you doing?" asked Julian, approaching cautiously, looking over Hamish's shoulder who was now thoroughly absorbed in his activity.
"Hey!" Hamish swivelled his head around and then gabbled in an aggressive whisper, "this is going to be for your birthday present tomorrow and it's going to be really cool so go over there and don't you dare look or I'll thump you!"
Julian obliged by stepping over to edge of the copse, right at the very peak of the hill up which they had just cycled. It was an even better place to witness the last few scraps of light start to get snatched away by the impending night. The reds and pinks blended together into a slurry of messy chalks, gripping Julian's attention with the greatest of ease.
After what seemed like no time at all, Julian heard a crunch of twigs behind him and then immediately felt a gentle blow to the ribs.
"Come on then!" shouted Hamish, already waddling hurriedly back to his bike. "Last one down the hill has to kiss Deidre Blinds at the party tomorrow!"
Julian lost no time in collecting his bike from where he had left it resting against a tree and shot off down the hill after Hamish, shouting expletives at him all the way. To Hamish's dismay, Julian not only managed to catch up with him but also to overtake him and consequently Hamish had to endure Julian laughing at him the rest of the way home.
As Julian clambered into bed that night, he couldn't help feeling incredibly relieved. Every year, he and Hamish took it in turns to host the birthday party and this year was Julian's go. The thing was, Hamish would always go out of his way to ruin, spoil and generally wreck the 'Julian' parties. Two years ago, Julian's parents had hired a petting zoo which had been a great idea until Hamish distracted the keeper with his pet snake before going around and releasing all of the other animals.
Still, thought Julian as he settled down under the covers, this year Mum's got us a conjurer. What could possibly Hamish ruin there?
*
The next morning, Julian was woken by his Mum and Dad and his big sister Judy with a mug of tea, which he appreciated but didn't exactly like, and a bowl of his favourite cereal on a tray. Also on the tray were his birthday cards, two from each set of grandparents, one from Mrs Laney down the road, four from his Uncles and Aunties, a printed out email from his cousin Tony who was living in Thailand for a year ("He got my age wrong again!" groaned Julian. "He always thinks I'm one year younger than I am! He still thinks I'm eight, look!") and a big one from his Mum and Dad and Judy.
Judy smiled at him broadly, which she almost never did unless it was a special day like Christmas or his birthday, and then said, "Happy birthday Julian. Here you go, this one's just from me," and handed over a box which contained Mega Death 4000. His Mum didn't look too pleased and while she was giving Judy a telling off for buying him a violent X-Box game, his dad knelt down and presented him with a smaller box.
"Here you go, Julian," he said gruffly, watching with a mixture of recognition and dismay as Julian tore off the paper in a tremendous hurry. "This was mine when I was about your age. Hopefully you won't get up to as much trouble with it as I did. If you do, I'll have it back off you like that!" He clicked his fingers to illustrate his point but Julian was no longer listening. Instead, he was riveted to the immaculate sight of his very own pocket penknife.
After lunch, the guests for the party began to arrive. First there was Hamish, who appeared at half past twelve with his mother. Julian had to fight very hard not to laugh when he saw Hamish. His curly hair had been completely flattened and then folded neatly down the centre and he was wearing a smart, navy blue shirt with shiny black shoes.
"What are you wearing?" sniggered Julian as he handed Hamish his birthday present while his Mum chatted at the door to Hamish's Mum.
"Shut your mouth Julian Weatherby!" snarled Hamish, almost spitting. "Thanks," he added less bitterly, as he slid the large tube of 'million' sweets into his trouser pocket.
At half past one the conjurer arrived and after he had set up in the living room, Julian, Hamish and the rest of the children all went and sat on the floor in front of his show. Julian's living room had been transformed into a carnival of sights. There was a slightly raised stage upon which the conjurer stood behind two black boxes with silver hinges by the lids. At the sides of the stage there were colossal orange and black and silver balloons and a hat stand that Julian didn't remember being there before. On the whole, it was a vast improvement on the way his living room usually looked and he hoped that conjurer would stay indefinitely.
Julian always felt a little embarrassed by conjurers and magic and anything where someone did things in front of you and you had to sit and enjoy them. He felt he always looked like he was faking his enjoyment because he tried so hard to look like he was enjoying himself, even when he was. But he put on a brave face and knew that after a few minutes he would be sucked into the magic like everybody else.
"Now children," announced the conjurer in a voice lifted up at the end, "what I am about to do for you is incredibly dangerous. Ve-ery dangerous indeed!" He produced a black silk bag from out of mid air which got an 'oooh!' from the watching audience. "And I shall need a volunteer from the crowd. One of the birthday boys!"
Hamish stood up as though a string has pulled him directly from a sitting position to a standing one and marched to the front, grinning all over his face.
"Ah! Thank you, sir!" boomed the conjurer. "And what is your name?"
"Julian," replied Hamish quickly, making all the other children laugh. Julian winced in embarrassment.
"Actually, that's Hamish," came Julian's mum's voice apologetically from the side while Hamish's mother tittered blankly. Julian saw his sister Judy stifling a fit of the giggles.
"A-a-a-a-a-all right Hamish then!" cried the conjurer, stretching out the 'a' for far too long a time. In Julian's opinion, at least. "That's a fine watch you have there, sir. May I take a closer look at it?" Reluctantly, Hamish took the watch off and gave it to him. "No-o-o-w, help me put it in this bag here." Hamish held the bag and everyone watched carefully while the conjurer popped it in.
"Now, Hamish, can you feel your watch in that bag?" Hamish nodded and Julian could tell he was trying to figure out in his fat head how he could cause the most trouble while he was up there. But while Hamish had been thinking, the conjurer pulled a large hammer out from his sleeve.
"How did he do that?" breathed Deirdre Blinds in a captivated whisper. Julian rolled his eyes at her but then unrolled them so he could watch the show because he wanted to see if, as he was hoping, the conjurer would hit Hamish with the hammer.
Unfortunately though, the conjurer didn't hit Hamish with the hammer after all but he did hit Hamish's watch. Julian and his friends gasped in amazement as they heard it breaking inside the bag and then pointed and clutched each other in awed giggles when the conjurer found it safe and sound in Hamish's pocket.
For some reason, Hamish was furious about the whole thing and returned to his seat silently fuming. Then he folded his arms and simply refused to enjoy any of the first act. He didn't smile when the conjurer pulled a white rabbit out of his cloak ("hats are so old fashioned these days!" cried the conjurer over the heads of the children to Julian and Hamishs' mothers who guffawed at this observation although Julian saw Judy roll her eyes which he guessed was her way of disaggreeing). He wasn't even pleased when the conjurer found chocolate pennies in Julian's ears, which had certainly been Julian's favourite part!
"He is going to pay for making me look stupid on my birthday!" scowled Hamish mutinously to Julian in the interval as they greedily slurped their cherry cokes. "This is my Dad's watch! You can tell how expensive it is just from looking at it. What gives that stupid man the right to start messing around with it like that? Making me look stupid...he's a - "
"Please don't do anything to spoil it," begged Julian but he knew it was no good.
Once Hamish got a thought in his head, he would see it through to the end. That was what happened when you didn't have a brain. In fact, Julian believed at that moment that if he had put a mirror at the back of Hamish's head and then looked in his eyes, he would have just seen his own reflection staring back at him.
Hamish lost no time either. In under a quarter of an hour, the children had settled back down on the floor for the second half of the show when the conjurer appeared from behind the two black boxes where he had been on his knees, ripped his mustache off and demanded to know, in a very ordinary voice, "Where's my rabbit gone?"
From there on out, the party was really over in any official capacity.
Julian, his Mum, Judy, Hamish, Hamish's Mum and all the children looked everywhere for the rabbit which wasn't easy with the conjurer stamping around talking loudly about how rare and expensive it had been. They looked under tables; in all of the shoes that were lined up in the hall' in the cloakroom in case the rabbit had reverted back to its act by mistake (only no one had a real cloak and they would have too high up off the ground for a rabbit to properly hide in anyway); in the kitchen; in the loo - they even looked in the magician's hat.
But it was no use. The white rabbit had vanished.
In the end, the conjurer insisted he had to go onto another party and while Julian's Mum began to pay him, with Hamish's Mum saying timidly, "Are you sure you couldn't just dye an ordinary rabbit that colour?", Julian and Hamish took their guests into the back garden where Judy supervised the improvised games.
"So where did you hide it then?" asked Julian sourly. But Hamish just shook his head nastily and denied having done anything at all although Julian was sure that Hamish was going to check his rucksack more than necessary.
A few hours later everybody went home, even Hamish and his Mum, and Julian decided to take his new pocket penknife out for a ride. He had been pleased to see that even Hamish was impressed with it when he showed it off to everyone in the back garden. No one else had a penknife. And certainly not a pocket penknife.
He rode up the Warren Copse and it was there he was struck down by a thought. Could rabbits recognise themselves in mirrors? Was that what they saw in headlights? Reflections?
Suddenly, Julian caught sight of a dim but neon light lying on the ground. As he got closer, he could see it was Hamish's glow stick from yesterday evening. Then Julian stopped and stared down.
At his feet, just ten inches away from the glow stick, was a snare with a dead rabbit inside. A dead white rabbit.
Julian was mesmerized by the sight; hooked by the coincidence. Hamish had meant to catch him a rabbit but not the one that he'd stolen.
"Stupid rabbit..." Hamish took out his phone and sent a picture to Hamish. Then he bent down and began to cut his last birthday present free with his pocket penknife.
On the evening of the third of July, Julian Weatherby and Hamish Hancock were sat at the top of the slope that led down to the road itself.. They were sat keenly, watching the motorway, like shorter, modern, railway children.
"Just saw another one!" cried Hamish, his chin wobbling in delight, pointing possessively down to the road.
Julian squinted his eyes and exhaled through his nose. "No you didn't."
"Yeah! Yeah, I did!" insisted Hamish pompously. He began jeering round at Julian as he was prone to do. "That's nine now that I've seen."
"It's seven, you liar!" retorted Julian, feeling rather cross. "That last one you saw didn't count either. It only counts if - "
Just then, Hamish batted the air beside Julian frantically with his glow stick; one of the universal indicators for simultaneous 'hush' and 'attention'. Both boys looked down to the road in time to see the rabbit disappear under the wheels of a transit van.
"EIGHT!" Hamish burst out laughing, clapping his hands together as he rolled onto his back briefly before rolling back up again. Julian scored it alongside the other seven. "Stupid rabbit! Come on, it's getting late and we still have to cycle back through the Warren Copse."
"So...why do so many rabbits do it?" asked Julian as the two of them peddled their way up along the dim public footpath that ran along the field. "If that's eight tonight, altogether that makes forty five in the last two weeks. That's a mass suicide. Do you reckon some of them are even ready to go?"
"It's the headlights, you idiot!" teased Hamish, starting to pant slightly as he pressed on and cycled in front of Julian. Julian always forgot how 'ironic' statements were quite often lost on Hamish who had no idea how to be anything but blunt. "Rabbits freeze in headlights, everyone knows that."
"Yeah but why?" repeated Julian, beginning to regret asking. Hamish didn't know anything. He was just a tubby, loud mouthed boy who always thought he was right. And, coincidentally, who had the same birthday as Julian, which was the fourth of July. As far back as Julian could remember, there had been Hamish, stealing his chocolate, talking through all of his favourite programmes and making fun of Julian whenever he could.
When they got to the Warren Copse, the gloaming was already fast approaching. Hamish scrambled ungracefully off his bicycle, let it drop with a soft thud to the shoddy earth while he got down onto his front and began to take a few things out of his rucksack. A lengthy piece of string, a scrap of paper with a diagram on it, and what looked like wire.
"What are you doing?" asked Julian, approaching cautiously, looking over Hamish's shoulder who was now thoroughly absorbed in his activity.
"Hey!" Hamish swivelled his head around and then gabbled in an aggressive whisper, "this is going to be for your birthday present tomorrow and it's going to be really cool so go over there and don't you dare look or I'll thump you!"
Julian obliged by stepping over to edge of the copse, right at the very peak of the hill up which they had just cycled. It was an even better place to witness the last few scraps of light start to get snatched away by the impending night. The reds and pinks blended together into a slurry of messy chalks, gripping Julian's attention with the greatest of ease.
After what seemed like no time at all, Julian heard a crunch of twigs behind him and then immediately felt a gentle blow to the ribs.
"Come on then!" shouted Hamish, already waddling hurriedly back to his bike. "Last one down the hill has to kiss Deidre Blinds at the party tomorrow!"
Julian lost no time in collecting his bike from where he had left it resting against a tree and shot off down the hill after Hamish, shouting expletives at him all the way. To Hamish's dismay, Julian not only managed to catch up with him but also to overtake him and consequently Hamish had to endure Julian laughing at him the rest of the way home.
As Julian clambered into bed that night, he couldn't help feeling incredibly relieved. Every year, he and Hamish took it in turns to host the birthday party and this year was Julian's go. The thing was, Hamish would always go out of his way to ruin, spoil and generally wreck the 'Julian' parties. Two years ago, Julian's parents had hired a petting zoo which had been a great idea until Hamish distracted the keeper with his pet snake before going around and releasing all of the other animals.
Still, thought Julian as he settled down under the covers, this year Mum's got us a conjurer. What could possibly Hamish ruin there?
*
The next morning, Julian was woken by his Mum and Dad and his big sister Judy with a mug of tea, which he appreciated but didn't exactly like, and a bowl of his favourite cereal on a tray. Also on the tray were his birthday cards, two from each set of grandparents, one from Mrs Laney down the road, four from his Uncles and Aunties, a printed out email from his cousin Tony who was living in Thailand for a year ("He got my age wrong again!" groaned Julian. "He always thinks I'm one year younger than I am! He still thinks I'm eight, look!") and a big one from his Mum and Dad and Judy.
Judy smiled at him broadly, which she almost never did unless it was a special day like Christmas or his birthday, and then said, "Happy birthday Julian. Here you go, this one's just from me," and handed over a box which contained Mega Death 4000. His Mum didn't look too pleased and while she was giving Judy a telling off for buying him a violent X-Box game, his dad knelt down and presented him with a smaller box.
"Here you go, Julian," he said gruffly, watching with a mixture of recognition and dismay as Julian tore off the paper in a tremendous hurry. "This was mine when I was about your age. Hopefully you won't get up to as much trouble with it as I did. If you do, I'll have it back off you like that!" He clicked his fingers to illustrate his point but Julian was no longer listening. Instead, he was riveted to the immaculate sight of his very own pocket penknife.
After lunch, the guests for the party began to arrive. First there was Hamish, who appeared at half past twelve with his mother. Julian had to fight very hard not to laugh when he saw Hamish. His curly hair had been completely flattened and then folded neatly down the centre and he was wearing a smart, navy blue shirt with shiny black shoes.
"What are you wearing?" sniggered Julian as he handed Hamish his birthday present while his Mum chatted at the door to Hamish's Mum.
"Shut your mouth Julian Weatherby!" snarled Hamish, almost spitting. "Thanks," he added less bitterly, as he slid the large tube of 'million' sweets into his trouser pocket.
At half past one the conjurer arrived and after he had set up in the living room, Julian, Hamish and the rest of the children all went and sat on the floor in front of his show. Julian's living room had been transformed into a carnival of sights. There was a slightly raised stage upon which the conjurer stood behind two black boxes with silver hinges by the lids. At the sides of the stage there were colossal orange and black and silver balloons and a hat stand that Julian didn't remember being there before. On the whole, it was a vast improvement on the way his living room usually looked and he hoped that conjurer would stay indefinitely.
Julian always felt a little embarrassed by conjurers and magic and anything where someone did things in front of you and you had to sit and enjoy them. He felt he always looked like he was faking his enjoyment because he tried so hard to look like he was enjoying himself, even when he was. But he put on a brave face and knew that after a few minutes he would be sucked into the magic like everybody else.
"Now children," announced the conjurer in a voice lifted up at the end, "what I am about to do for you is incredibly dangerous. Ve-ery dangerous indeed!" He produced a black silk bag from out of mid air which got an 'oooh!' from the watching audience. "And I shall need a volunteer from the crowd. One of the birthday boys!"
Hamish stood up as though a string has pulled him directly from a sitting position to a standing one and marched to the front, grinning all over his face.
"Ah! Thank you, sir!" boomed the conjurer. "And what is your name?"
"Julian," replied Hamish quickly, making all the other children laugh. Julian winced in embarrassment.
"Actually, that's Hamish," came Julian's mum's voice apologetically from the side while Hamish's mother tittered blankly. Julian saw his sister Judy stifling a fit of the giggles.
"A-a-a-a-a-all right Hamish then!" cried the conjurer, stretching out the 'a' for far too long a time. In Julian's opinion, at least. "That's a fine watch you have there, sir. May I take a closer look at it?" Reluctantly, Hamish took the watch off and gave it to him. "No-o-o-w, help me put it in this bag here." Hamish held the bag and everyone watched carefully while the conjurer popped it in.
"Now, Hamish, can you feel your watch in that bag?" Hamish nodded and Julian could tell he was trying to figure out in his fat head how he could cause the most trouble while he was up there. But while Hamish had been thinking, the conjurer pulled a large hammer out from his sleeve.
"How did he do that?" breathed Deirdre Blinds in a captivated whisper. Julian rolled his eyes at her but then unrolled them so he could watch the show because he wanted to see if, as he was hoping, the conjurer would hit Hamish with the hammer.
Unfortunately though, the conjurer didn't hit Hamish with the hammer after all but he did hit Hamish's watch. Julian and his friends gasped in amazement as they heard it breaking inside the bag and then pointed and clutched each other in awed giggles when the conjurer found it safe and sound in Hamish's pocket.
For some reason, Hamish was furious about the whole thing and returned to his seat silently fuming. Then he folded his arms and simply refused to enjoy any of the first act. He didn't smile when the conjurer pulled a white rabbit out of his cloak ("hats are so old fashioned these days!" cried the conjurer over the heads of the children to Julian and Hamishs' mothers who guffawed at this observation although Julian saw Judy roll her eyes which he guessed was her way of disaggreeing). He wasn't even pleased when the conjurer found chocolate pennies in Julian's ears, which had certainly been Julian's favourite part!
"He is going to pay for making me look stupid on my birthday!" scowled Hamish mutinously to Julian in the interval as they greedily slurped their cherry cokes. "This is my Dad's watch! You can tell how expensive it is just from looking at it. What gives that stupid man the right to start messing around with it like that? Making me look stupid...he's a - "
"Please don't do anything to spoil it," begged Julian but he knew it was no good.
Once Hamish got a thought in his head, he would see it through to the end. That was what happened when you didn't have a brain. In fact, Julian believed at that moment that if he had put a mirror at the back of Hamish's head and then looked in his eyes, he would have just seen his own reflection staring back at him.
Hamish lost no time either. In under a quarter of an hour, the children had settled back down on the floor for the second half of the show when the conjurer appeared from behind the two black boxes where he had been on his knees, ripped his mustache off and demanded to know, in a very ordinary voice, "Where's my rabbit gone?"
From there on out, the party was really over in any official capacity.
Julian, his Mum, Judy, Hamish, Hamish's Mum and all the children looked everywhere for the rabbit which wasn't easy with the conjurer stamping around talking loudly about how rare and expensive it had been. They looked under tables; in all of the shoes that were lined up in the hall' in the cloakroom in case the rabbit had reverted back to its act by mistake (only no one had a real cloak and they would have too high up off the ground for a rabbit to properly hide in anyway); in the kitchen; in the loo - they even looked in the magician's hat.
But it was no use. The white rabbit had vanished.
In the end, the conjurer insisted he had to go onto another party and while Julian's Mum began to pay him, with Hamish's Mum saying timidly, "Are you sure you couldn't just dye an ordinary rabbit that colour?", Julian and Hamish took their guests into the back garden where Judy supervised the improvised games.
"So where did you hide it then?" asked Julian sourly. But Hamish just shook his head nastily and denied having done anything at all although Julian was sure that Hamish was going to check his rucksack more than necessary.
A few hours later everybody went home, even Hamish and his Mum, and Julian decided to take his new pocket penknife out for a ride. He had been pleased to see that even Hamish was impressed with it when he showed it off to everyone in the back garden. No one else had a penknife. And certainly not a pocket penknife.
He rode up the Warren Copse and it was there he was struck down by a thought. Could rabbits recognise themselves in mirrors? Was that what they saw in headlights? Reflections?
Suddenly, Julian caught sight of a dim but neon light lying on the ground. As he got closer, he could see it was Hamish's glow stick from yesterday evening. Then Julian stopped and stared down.
At his feet, just ten inches away from the glow stick, was a snare with a dead rabbit inside. A dead white rabbit.
Julian was mesmerized by the sight; hooked by the coincidence. Hamish had meant to catch him a rabbit but not the one that he'd stolen.
"Stupid rabbit..." Hamish took out his phone and sent a picture to Hamish. Then he bent down and began to cut his last birthday present free with his pocket penknife.
♠ ♠ ♠
*whistle*