The Strange Case of the Vegetable's in the Night Time: Prologue (maybe)

This is perhaps how it could have all begun… ¹

Picture a standard suburban garden, with a small square of grass and a few shrubs, surrounded by a high brick wall. A kid’s scooter and a large, net-encircled trampoline give an indication of the membership of the family that lives at this particular address. Up against one wall is a large wooden rabbit hutch, with straw sticking out of the chicken wire that forms one of the large doors of the hutch.

A large, well-rounded² pigeon lands on the lawn and pecks desultorily at the grass. A rustling comes from the hutch, and a pair of small, beady, black eyes look out through the wire. The pigeon looks up, then goes back to scratching at the lawn. A shrill “wheeep” comes from the hutch. The pigeon ignores it, as it does the next, louder and more commanding “wheeps” that come from the hutch.

There’s a sound of scuffling, and a small shower of straw, sawdust and sunflower seeds gets kicked out from the wire. The pigeon looks up, and liking what it sees, hops over to the sawdust. As it pecks through the debris for sunflower seeds and bits of corn, it can see the inhabitant of the hutch – a brown guinea pig with a white patch over its left eye.

The guinea pig, knowing that it has the pigeon’s full attention, chatters at the pigeon in a mixture of wheeps and clicks, telling it exactly what it will do, and how many more sunflower seeds it will receive if it does…

…Or it could have all been completely different. There’s only one creature who knows for sure what happened and when, and well, she’s not saying.

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¹ Probably not, but it never hurts to speculate.

² Or, if you’re being uncomplimentary, fat.