(Vegetables) Chapter Forty Four: A Really Shoddy Disguise

Outside, in the yard, things looked very calm. Mrs K stood next to several large barrels, supervising as rabbits armed with a variety of examples of the water gun art came forward to reload their armaments¹³³. After reloading, the rabbits then went to stack up their weapons in an orderly fashion along one wall, before assembling in parade order in the open space of the yard.

The pigeons were performing similar manoeuvres, but instead were perching along the guttering of the neighbouring buildings.

Around the edges of the yard were wooden boxes and pallets, obviously stacked as out of the way as was possible.

As our heroes watched, the last few rabbits and pigeons finished their re-arming procedure and fell in.

“Where is our cavalry?” whispered Morwen.

“No idea,” whispered Sissy. “They should have been here by now.”

“Something must be wrong,” said Morwen. “I hope Richard’s alright.”

“I’m sure he can look after himself,” Sissy retorted.

“It looks like it’s up to us to stop Mrs K,” said Rosa.

She looked behind her and gave a quiet whoop of joy.

“My shoes!”

The others shushed her as she went to grab them, putting the bunnies down.

“I can’t see anyone else besides Mrs K,” whispered Felindre. “If we’re going to nobble her, now’s the time.”

“Are you really suggesting physically assaulting an old lady?” queried Morwen.

“Abso-flipping-lutely,” replied Felindre. “Any objections?”

“No,” said Morwen. “Just checking.”

Mrs K was in the middle of a rousing speech to her troops when the kitchen door opened, and the three women and two rabbits came charging out, all yelling their heads off¹³⁴. The humans jumped on Mrs K and knocked her over, piling on top of her and holding onto her until Felindre could grab her arm in that particularly painful restraint Felindre knew.

The rabbits and pigeons looked confused, and got even more so when Pinky and Purple raced up to them and started yelling at them all¹³⁵.

Mrs K looked at Rosa and Morwen, and winced dramatically as Felindre tightened her hold.

“There’s no call for this, dearies,” she said in a particularly old and quavery voice. “I’m an old lady, you know.”

“And an evil genius,” retorted Felindre.

“True, true,” agreed Mrs K with a sigh. “But I’m still old and fragile. It’ll take me a long time to heal if you break anything. And people my age have died from broken bones, you know.”

“Ha!” was Felindre’s response.

Rosa on the other hand was looking worried.

“She is an old lady…” she pointed out.

“Who fed us to a giant carnivorous plant, and has plans for world domination,” replied Morwen. “Don’t be soft, Rosa.”

Mrs K’s face, previously a picture of harmless, fragile, old dear, twisted into an expression of anger.

“So much for the weak and feeble ploy,” she snarled, and wrenched her arm out of Felindre’s grasp, dislocating it.

“Attack them!” she yelled at the rabbits and pigeons.

There was absolute chaos. The pigeons started mobbing the humans, at least half the rabbits ran away, while the remainder started fighting amoung themselves. Rosa, Felindre and Morwen dove for cover behind the barrels of CS4, while Mrs K looked on.

“Pathetic,” she sneered, as she popped her dislocated shoulder back into place with a metallic clunk and picked her cane up from where it had fallen. “If you want a job done well, you have to do it yourself. Say your prayers, dearies!”

She started towards the barrels, swinging her cane in a menacing, yet jaunty fashion. Casually, she picked one full barrel up with one hand, and put it to one side.

“I think we can safely say she’s not entirely human,” commented Sissy.

“Yes, but what can we do about it?” yelled Morwen, frantically batting pigeons away.

Sissy was saved from replying by high pitched whining sound, coupled with a rapid propeller chopping noise. Over the roof of the building flew a strange airplane¹³⁶, piloted by Snowball the chicken, complete with a pair of aviator’s goggles. At the back, in a pair of gunner’s turrets were Bourboun and Coconut Cream, bringing to bear a set of machine guns. They opened fire on the pigeons, who scattered at this new threat.

“Ow!” said Morwen, as one of the chickens’ bullets hit her forehead and bounced onto the ground. It was an un-popped and slightly charred popcorn kernel.

The pigeons quickly discovered that the chickens’ ammunition was in fact edible. All thoughts of fight or flight fled as they scrabbled around picking up popcorn kernels and chicken food pellets.

Mrs K was caught completely by surprise, gawping up at this new intruder. A set of bomb doors opened in the belly of the plane, and two large eggs dropped out, to land with pinpoint accuracy right in her eyes.

Shocked, she stepped backwards, dropping her cane, and knocking over the full barrel of CS4. The lid came off, and the contents spilled onto the ground, spreading out over the tarmac and down the drain.

“Uh-oh,” said Rosa. “That’s not good.”

In the shadows at the corner of the yard, a white rabbit put its head in its paws in despair, before disappearing with a quiet pop.

Mrs K wiped the egg off her face, and looked at the spill, then back at Morwen and Rosa.

“You’ll pay for this!” she snarled.

Felindre, who had taken advantage of Mrs K’s confusion to sneak around behind her, hit her over the head with one of the full CS4 guns. It broke, showering Mrs K with the CS4. Other than that, it did absolutely nothing.

“Definitely not human,” muttered Sissy. “Well, you never know until you try.”

There was a flash and a smell of ozone, and Mrs K froze with one arm raised up to lay the smackdown on Felindre.

Slowly, still frozen, Mrs K toppled over to fall on the ground, face first.

“Is she dead?” asked Rosa.

Felindre bent to feel for a pulse.

“I’m not entirely sure she was ever alive,” she replied.

The chicken plane landed, scattering pigeons, and the chickens disembarked, and started bossing the pigeons around, chasing several away from the spilled food. The rabbits were still arguing amounst themselves.

Rosa and Morwen stepped closer to Mrs K, and looked down at her.

Mrs K’s head twitched several times, causing Rosa to jump out of her skin, and a hatch in the back of it opened, releasing a small cloud of smoke, and a coughing guinea pig, wearing a set of fluffy white rabbit ears on a headband. It looked at Felindre. She looked at it. It wheeped at her, and then made a break for it.

Guinea pigs, even ones pretending to be rabbits, have very short legs. Felindre caught it by the scruff of the neck before it had even got out of the hatch. She held it up and looked at it.

The squabbling rabbits immediately stopped squabbling and turned to stare at Felindre, noses twitching.

“Um, Fel,” said Rosa. “Be very careful here…”

There was a palpable air of menace emanating from the rabbit herd. Even Pinky and Purple were looking angry.

“What?” Felindre asked them. “It’s not a rabbit, it’s a guinea pig.”

And with one quick movement, she removed the fluffy rabbit ears from the guinea pig.

The change in the rabbit herd was instant. As one, they all turned their bottoms to Felindre and the guinea pig, turning to look over their shoulders to make sure the insult was properly understood. A few looked slightly embarrassed, but the rest just looked annoyed.

The guinea pig in Felindre’s hand stopped squeaking and wriggling and just hung there defeated.

Their point made, most of the rabbits slunk¹³⁷ off into the shadows. A smaller group (including Pinky and Purple) started twitching whiskers at each other, in deep conversation for a moment.

Conversation over, Pinky and Purple came to the front and stood in front of Felindre and the guinea pig. Sitting up on their haunches, they rubbed their front paws together, and made chewing faces.

“Ooh, charades!” said Rosa. “I love charades. Two words. First word…wash…rub…paws…”

The two rabbits stopped and glared at her.

“Where is Richard, anyway?” asked Rosa, quailing under their unblinking stare. “Isn’t this the sort of thing the Agency were set up to deal with?”

“Not charades,” said Morwen. “I think they’re wanting to be paid.”

Pinky and Purple nodded their heads emphatically.

“I don’t know if we can do that,” Morwen continued. “Your arrangement was with Mrs K, after all.”

The remaining rabbit herd looked angry again¹³⁸.

“But we can certainly negotiate,” backtracked Morwen hurriedly. “How much are we talking, here? And of what?”

Pinky drew a triangle shape in the gravel with one paw, then added lines at the short end.

“Are we doing Pictionary now?” asked Rosa, peering at the drawing. “Because that looks like a carrot to me.”

Pinky did a bunny hop in agreement.

“Right, carrots are the currency. How many?” Morwen asked.

Purple thumped her paw on the ground once.

“One?”

Purple nodded

“Just one?” Morwen clarified.

Purple rolled her eyes at this level of idiocy¹³⁹. She thumped her paw once, hopped over to Pinky, thumped her paw again, then thumped her paw in front of several of the rabbits in the herd until the stupid humans got the message.

“One carrot each then,” said Morwen. “I think we can manage that. But you’ll have to give us until tomorrow so we can go buy them.”

Pinky rolled her eyes, and hopped over to one of the piles of boxes at the edge of the yard, and scratched at it. Right at the very top of the pile was a box with “carrots” written on it in large font.

“I guess we don’t have to wait after all,” said Morwen.

With Rosa’s help, she distributed carrots to all the rabbits, who happily hopped off to who knows where with their payment in their mouths. By this stage the chickens had encouraged the rest of the pigeons to leave, and had hopped back into their plane/hutch to go to sleep.

The three humans were left with Pinky and Purple, and the guinea pig formerly known as Mrs K, still hanging forlornly in Felindre’s grasp. Felindre looked at it.

“Now, what are we going to do with you?” she asked. “And your human suit?”

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¹³³ Should that be legaments? Pawaments? Whatever.
¹³⁴ Well, the humans were, the rabbits were doing their best to squeak in an alarming way.
¹³⁵ At least that’s what I think they were doing – the nose wriggling and ear twitching was very emphatic.
¹³⁶ It looked like someone had attached wings and an engine to the nest box of their chicken coop.
¹³⁷ Well, more hopped, but in an embarrassed sort of way.
¹³⁸ I’d never before fully appreciated how menacing several hundred rabbits could be.
¹³⁹ There were times when I really knew how she was feeling.