Monday, 4 May 2020
(Vegetables) Chapter Forty: Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere
There was another row. Morwen, Felindre and Rosa were all for finding Mrs K. Richard wanted them to stay put at the Agency headquarters.
It all got very heated and loud, though not particularly convincing, and Richard wound up shouting107:
“No! I absolutely forbid you from following up on the White Rabbit lead! You’ll stay locked in here where it’s safe!”
He stormed out of the room and slammed the door.
Morwen looked like she was going to scream, or laugh, or both at the same time. Before she could do either, Rosa said:
“Hang on. He’s left his key card and pass on the table. And he hasn’t taken the piece of paper with the address on it.”
Morwen grinned, and touched the ladybird, back on its chain around her neck.
“Plausible deniability, darlings. Let’s go!”
They’d just got out of the front door when Richard’s car pulled up in front of them. Tom got out, looking puzzled.
“Richard asked me to bring his car round front for him?”
“That’s for us,” said Felindre, snagging the key from his hand and climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Give him my love,” said Morwen, getting into the passenger seat.
Rosa just winked as she too got into the car.
The car threw up great sheets of gravel behind it as it sped down the lane. From under one of the trees that lined the drive, a white rabbit with tomato-coloured paws watched them go.
“So,” said Rosa, as they sped down country lanes, “remind me again. Richard is part of an agency with lots of resources and the ability to deal with all this sort of stuff on a day-to-day basis. We, on the other hand, got kidnapped, had to be rescued, and only escaped thanks to the Agency’s pizza and our enemies’ inability to tidy up.”
“Yup,” said Felindre, staring intently out the windscreen.
“So why did the rabbit give me the address then? And what exactly are we supposed to do with it?” Rosa asked.
“I have no idea,” said Morwen. “But I for one will be damned before I let Mrs K get away with all these shenanigans. There’s got to be a reason, so let’s find out.”
The address brought them to a normal looking semi-detached house in a normal middle-class suburban part of town108. Morwen rang the doorbell.
The door was opened by a young girl.
“I know you,” said Morwen. “You wanted to look after my chickens. And you were collecting old cookbooks for Save the Gardens. Why was it so important to get your hands on that book?”
The girl burst into tears.
“I just wanted to get my guinea pig back!” she wailed.
The three women looked at each other, confused. Rosa stepped forward.
“Can we come in?” she asked gently. “I think we could all do with a cup of tea and a biscuit or two.”
Still snuffling, the girl opened the door wider, and let them all in.
The girl’s name was Megan, and she was ten years old. She was also alone in the house, with orders not to open the door to anyone.
“But it’s ok,” she explained earnestly. “The white rabbit told me I could trust you and that you’d help.”
“Well,” said Rosa. “The white rabbit gave us your address, but to be honest, we’re not really sure what it is we’re supposed to do here.”
“Help find my guinea pig,” said Megan, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“When did it go missing?”
“A couple of months ago, and that’s when Granny started acting all weird.”
There was a pop, and a white rabbit materialised. It looked around for a second, and disappeared again, with another pop. Everyone looked confused for a moment.
“Are you staying with her? Your Granny?” asked Rosa.
This was a pretty fair question, as the living room they were all sitting in was a marvel of little-old-lady décor, all chintz and Laura Ashley floral patterns.
“Yup,” said Megan, slurping her tea. “Mum’s on contract on the oil rig, and Dad’s off painting.”
“What does he paint? Landscapes?”
“No, bridges.”
Felindre had been looking around the room for clues109. She picked a framed family photo off the mantelpiece and wordlessly handed it to Morwen.
Morwen took a look, and said:
“That’s Mrs K alright. She looks different though…more… happy…”
Sure enough, in the photo Mrs K still had her silver cucumber-handled walking stick. But she also was smiling in a happy, relaxed way, quite unlike the usual lemon-sucking expression she had worn whenever any of our heroes had spoken to her110.
“Granny was always happy,” explained Megan. “But on the day that Snuffles, that’s my guinea pig, went missing, Granny just got really cross and kept yelling at me for no reason. She wouldn’t even help me look for Snuffles. And then she got all weird. Like arguing about books and stuff. And then she made me make loads of this weird soup stuff, and it smells horrible and she’d get cross if I didn’t do it right, and I really tried my hardest. It’s not my fault that one batch gave bananas superpowers, or that another one turned the rabbits funny colours! But she got so cross with me! And I had to carry a pair of rabbits around in my tuba case the whole time.”
“Tuba case?” said Morwen.
“Superpowered bananas?” said Felindre.
“Multicoloured rabbits?” said Rosa.
“But that’s ok,” continued Megan, barely pausing for breath. “I like the rabbits, ‘cause they’re nice colours. Pinky is pink with purple spots, and Purple is purple with pink spots, and they’re my friends now that Snuffles is missing. But I really miss her!”
She started snuffling herself then.
“Hang on,” said Morwen. “Did you say your Granny made you make some strange soup stuff?”
“Yeah, but we never ate it – she’d just take it away in buckets. And it smelled horrible. Once I made it wrong and we had to get the gas board out, ‘cause the neighbours thought it was a gas leak and we had to evacuate the whole street.”
“What was it called?” asked Rosa, gently.
“Something, something and a number,” replied Megan.
“Cabbage Surprise Number Four?!” asked Rosa, Morwen and Felindre, all at the same time.
Megan brightened up. “Yes, that was it!”
“Well, it looks like we’ve found the source of the CS4,” said Felindre.
There was a scrabbling noise and a pink rabbit with purple spots hopped into the living room. It stopped in shock as it saw everyone in the living room, and twitched its nose a bit.
“Hi Pinky! Where’s Purple?” said Megan, and got down off the sofa to pick it up.
Mind made up, it made a quick U-turn and sped off down the hallway.
“Grab it!” yelled Felindre. “And find the other one!”
“Don’t hurt them!” wailed Megan.
There followed twelve and a half minutes of three grown women and one ten year old girl chasing a pair of brightly coloured rabbits around the house. There were thrills, there were spills, and one moment when it looked like both rabbits were going to escape out of the cat flap. Long story short, eventually the two bunnies were cornered in the living room, staring at the humans and twitching their noses.
“We appear to have a stand-off,” said Felindre.
“Remind me again why we had to catch them?” asked Rosa.
“Because there’s a good chance they’re agents of Mrs K, and were on their way to report us,” replied Felindre, staring the rabbits down.
They stared back111.
“What do we do with them now?” asked Rosa. “I don’t think we can catch both of them….”
There was another pop, and a white rabbit appeared in front of the humans. It sat up on its hind legs and squeaked at them imperiously. It then turned its attention to the other two rabbits, squeaking at them furiously, and occasionally reaching out to bat one or other of them across the nose with one white paw112.
The two coloured rabbits shrank as far down onto the carpet as they could, and looked thoroughly miserable.
The white rabbit’s tirade continued, reaching a crescendo. It bopped the other two rabbits on the nose again for emphasis, spun on its back legs, twitched its nose at the humans, and disappeared with another pop.
The coloured bunnies looked thoroughly miserable, so when Megan rushed forward to pick them up and cuddle them, they snuggled into her lap.
“I never thought I’d see two pink and purple rabbits being bollocked by a time travelling white one,” observed Morwen.
“Are they ok?” Rosa asked Megan, who was fussing over them.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think they just got a bit of a shock.”
“Don’t blame them,” said Rosa. “I think I’ve had a bit of a shock too.”
“But what on Earth was it all about?” said Felindre.
“My horoscope did say that news travels fact and a close companions comments will mean a lot to me,” said Rosa.
“News travels fact?” queried Morwen.
“That’s what it said,” confirmed Rosa.
There was another pop, and an exasperated white rabbit reappeared, carrying a DVD in its mouth. It dropped it in front of Felindre, and glared at her. Then it disappeared again113.
“Well,” said Felindre, picking the DVD up and putting it in the DVD player. “Let’s see what message they’re trying to get through to us thick humans.”
___
107 In a very over-dramatic way.
108 In other words, boring.
109 Or possibly she was just being nosy.
110 Or been threatened, kidnapped, or just plain intimidated by her.
111 They were giving as good as they got in the dirty looks department.
112 Well, it was mostly white. There were traces of red pizza sauce around the pads.
113 With a corresponding pop.
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