TheBanyanTree: Small, furry creatures

[JMoney]

As I walked past our half-glassed front door on Monday morning I happened to
glance down and there, outside, sitting on the mat and looking back up at
me, almost as though it was just waiting to be let in, was a small white
rabbit.  What a surprise!

For a moment I couldn't believe it.  How could it be that a fluffy little
bunny could survive the canine and vehicular hazards of suburbia to arrive
on our doorstep all sweetly pink-eyed and unblemished?  The thought scared
me.  I had to try to bring it in to safety.  Perhaps if I just opened the
door the rabbit would decide to hop in.

Because the door is half-glassed we keep the keys in a separate place and by
the time I had retrieved them the rabbit was nowhere to be seen.  Had it
been a vision - a mere trick of my mind?  More likely, it had run off or
hidden.

I opened the door and looked around.  No rabbit.  I walked to the end of the
driveway and looked up and down the street.  No rabbit.  I crouched down and
looked under the car.  No rabbit.  I moved closer and looked under from a
different angle.  Ah!  There it was - a ball of white fur crouched next to
the inside of the front driver's side tyre.

Kneeling beside the tyre I put out my hand.  The rabbit sniffed my fingers.
I moved in a little closer and gently stroked its forehead.  It allowed
itself to be fondled briefly and then edged away further under the car.
Well.  At least it wasn't skittish.

I considered the possibilities.  Lie down in the dirt and make a bold grab.
Get the broom and use it to try to poke and steer the rabbit out from under.
Wake the son up and ask for help.  Four hands are better than two for
catching a rabbit and two heads are better than one for thinking about how
to do it.

Back inside I went and opened the boy's bedroom door to the accompaniment of
a cacophony of corgis.  The cacophony is due to the fact that Taffy has a
proprietory interest in all sleeping boys and therefore barks to try to herd
intruders away from the door or, failing that, to assert his right to get to
the boy first.  Tilly, on the other hand, is supremely interested in trying
to dominate Taffy so she barks and nips at his heels while he's barking and
running between and around my legs and I'm saying, "Shush, you noisy dogs,"
and trying not to trip over all these seething, low-slung animals.
Naturally, no boy can sleep through such a ruckus or through the face
licking and jumping on the bed that generally follows it.

"Wha..?" said the boy.

"There's a rabbit under the car," I said, "and I need your help to catch
it."

"Wha..?" said the boy.  He takes a little time to reach full consciousness
but once he gets there he's a very handy person to have around - full of
bright ideas.  It was his idea to get a shoebox to put the rabbit in.  His
experience was with Himalayan Dwarfs for which a shoebox would make a
reasonably comfortable temporary home.  I knew this rabbit was a little
bigger but I didn't have any better ideas so the shoebox it was.

Off we went, fully expecting to have to do some chasing before we did any
catching, but the rabbit had come out.  Just as I was turning towards the
tyre on my right I saw the rabbit sitting against the wall on my left.  It
began to move.  I grabbed it.  I tried to take hold of its hind legs.  It
wasn't having any of that.  It kicked, raking my arms with its claws.

If you've ever tried to hang on to a flailing rabbit you'll know what damage
their claws can do to the tender skin on the inside of a forearm.  I
certainly do.  Therefore I ceased with the civilities, shoved that rabbit in
the shoe box and closed the lid as well as I could.  Immediately the poor
little thing stopped its frantic scrabbling and settled quietly into its
snug new home.

Actually its new home was way too snug.  The only way to keep the lid on was
to hold it down, which I did as I examined the damage to my forearms and
sent the boy off in search of some larger container.  The skin was not even
reddened.  This rabbit must have had its claws clipped.  This rabbit was
one well looked after pet.

James came back with one of those plastic crates that have open spaces on
each side for handles and are handy for keeping toys in.  In went the
rabbit.  In went a bowl of water and some spinach leaves.  On top went a
largish wooden chopping block and off I went in search of an owner.

The next-door neighbours were not missing a rabbit and knew no one who might
be except, perhaps, for the pre-school across the road.  It was worth a try.

This pre-school is THE major accomplishment of our previous local member of
parliament.  At least it is according to his publicity.  There has been a
pre-school operating on the site for as long as we've lived here but in that
fellow's time it was enlarged in an interestingly modernistic architectural
style.  It's all corrugated iron and heavy plywood painted in reds, ochres
and blues.  The roof is steeply pitched and has a metallic finish that used
to blind me whenever I looked that way.  Thankfully, the rain of two wet
seasons and the dust of three Drys has served to dull its glare.

Having driven past the pre-school countless times but have never having been
inside, naturally I was interested to see the interior.  The entry way is
roofed and on the side opposite the first of two sets of child-proof gates
is a wall with a notice board displaying information about how the
government can help you to cover the costs of your child care fees.  I
could've done with some of that help myself 30 years ago when I was a single
working mother.  But there you are.  People thought badly of single mothers
in those days.

Beyond the gates, I could see a large central courtyard full of sand pits
and play equipment all welcomely shaded by a large and very leafy mahogany.
There were tiny tots running about and parents in various stages of handing
their little ones over to the ministrations of strangers.  I began
struggling with the first of the gates and as I fumbled and kept failing a
woman who, by her shirt, seemed to be an employee of the place asked if I
needed help.

"I was wondering," I said, "if you keep rabbits.  And if you do, whether one
is missing."

"Well, no," she replied.  "We don't have rabbits but one of our workers has
a white one."  She pointed to a house on the corner diagonally opposite ours
and said, "She lives there and will be coming on shift at 9.30."

I made my way to the house on the corner.  There was a black dog in the
front yard so there was no way I was going to try to go in that way.  In any
case the gate was chained and bolted.  I walked down the side street to
their back gate and was disappointed to discover that this place had a yard
in continuity.  The black dog followed my progress with interest.

It turned out to be one of those amazingly friendly dogs whose whole bodies
wag rather than just their tails.  It gave off every possible signal that it
would just love to become my really good friend and retrieve any stick I
might care to throw but I don't have it within me to trust anyone else's
dog.  In any case the back gate also was chained and bolted.  These guys
must have suffered the same break-in problems with which we've had to deal.
I went home to wait for 9.30.

James was sitting watching the rabbit while the rabbit did rabbit things:
grooming her ears and belly,  peering through the handle holes, nibbling at
the greens.  He wanted to know what I'd discovered and when I told him about
the house on the corner and the friendly dog I was scared of he thought he'd
check the place out.  Within a very short while he was back with a leaflet
he'd found in our letter box.  Someone had three rabbits to give away to
good homes.

Now we used to have a rabbit.  His name was Ben.  He was a lovely, sweet
natured little rabbit and we were all very sad when he sickened and died
four years ago.  Since then nothing to do with rabbits has come our way so
to find a rabbit and then get notice of rabbits needing a home, all on the
one day, made me feel slightly spooked.  I asked myself what it all meant.
I castigated myself for being superstitious.  I reminded myself that I don't
believe in coincidences.  I asked myself again what it all meant.  I decided
I would wait to find out.  James rang the number on the leaflet to ask if
those people had lost a rabbit but theirs were all grey.  At 9.30 I went
back across to the pre-school.

The woman whose rabbit it might have been had not come in to work.  She was
off having an ultra-sound.  I was beginning to feel a little distressed what
with not knowing what to do with this rabbit and having two dogs at home at
least one of whom seemed likely to treat an escaped rabbit as roughly as she
does the mop, broom, cobweb sweeper and anything else bearing anything
remotely resembling fur.  It must have shown on my face because the woman I
spoke to said they had a cat cage there and, if I liked, I could bring the
rabbit over and they would keep it till the possible owner arrived.
Wonderful!

Back in the shoe box the rabbit went and was delivered to the pre-school.
As the woman bore it away she was surrounded by children who asked,
"What'cha got in there?"  I don't know what happened after that but no one
has brought it back to me so I presume that it found a home.  I also think
I've found a reasonable meaning to apply to this little event but that's far
too long a story to go into.

Janice