Shadow Hound

By summer, the adorable little snugglums were devastating our vegetable patch and Mom was not happy. She tried putting alfalfa pellets and timothy hay near the entrance to their burrow because that was supposed to be better for bunnies than vegetables. They weren’t having it. Caleb said that was like offering us dried beans when there was ice cream on the other side of the table, all they had to do was walk a little further.

One evening, as we sat around the grill on the back porch eating marshmallows, the bunnies came out to eat. They weren’t scared at all. Just hopped on out in a row one after the other. Hopping with casually slow indifference over the lawn they stopped and nibbled at whatever tidbits caught their attention, very much like a family of ducks I saw at the park with Caleb one day.

The munching rabbits moved in short lazy undulations, alternating quick spurts of excitement with a settling-in-place for munching with delicious contentment. Something in me stirred. They weren’t just cute babies anymore. They were destroying mom’s garden. A sniff from across the table drew my attention and I glanced in Mom’s direction. The firelight glimmered off wet tear tracks down her face. She sighed in a resigned way, her shoulders sagging a slightly at the herd of little herbivores.

Yes. The baby bunnies had been cute, but they were wreaking havoc on our hard work. Those twelve little vegetable destroyers…were destroying vegetables. My mind fumbled for the words I needed to describe my indignation. And they made Mommy cry. I turned back to watching the fearless furry thieves then felt myself stiffen and growl with frustration.

“Oh, honey.” Without having to even turn back toward Mom I could tell she was eying at me with that ever so sympathetic, slightly sad, but just a teensy bit disappointed look that mothers everywhere reserved for their wayward children. She gathered me up into her arms, nuzzling her nose on the top of my head. I still shot daggers at the nocturnal garden raiders while settling into Mom’s perfectly comforting presence, allowing her to soothe my ire. “I know they are messing up our garden, but aren’t they entitled to eat also?”

“No Mom.” Caleb interjected sourly. “We have literally given them sacrificial vegetables of the stuff they like to eat off the plants.” He waved an arm stiff with his young anger at the shed in the backyard. “But is that good enough for them? Nooooo!” I loved my brother’s sarcastic tone, and I grinned in agreement. “No, they just hop right on by it and eat the stuff in the garden.”

Tilting my head up to see Mom’s response, I was able to actually see her turn her compassionate-sad-disappointed look on her son now. With another one of her deep exasperated sighs, she cocked her head and raised her eyebrows inquiringly. Oh, I wished I could look like my beautiful mother with her smooth pretty face and short eyebrows. “And what would you suggest we do about our…” she narrowed her eyes and nostrils in that way she did when she was thinking of things distasteful “…uninvited borders?”

As Mom had spoken, I had tried to mimic her look, narrowing my eyes, and wrinkling my nose at my brother. I accomplished narrowing my eyes just fine but succeeded only in causing my nostrils to flare instead of narrow. It was the opposite of what I had intended. And I lost my focus on Caleb, becoming cross-eyed as I tried to observe my own nose.

“We-ell…” This was going to be interesting. Caleb only got that tone in his voice when he was about to suggest something that he knew Mom would probably not approve of. Sometimes she surprised us and said yes. Like that time Caleb asked if she would play with water balloons with us, and we played put out the fire monster. Mom was the fire monster. “What if we maybe…chase them a little?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Shucks. I knew that tone of voice. That was the I-can’t-believe-that-you-are-being-serious-because-you-know-that-I-won’t-agree-to-that voice. “And just what would that accomplish besides making them afraid of us?”

“It would make them afraid of us in the garden?” Even I could see that Caleb was losing this argument in his head. Mom didn’t even have to try. Her eyebrows arched higher, and her eyes grew narrower with an adroit amusement. “Or we could catch them?” he added, meekly hopeful. When Mom cocked her head to the other side instead of explaining again why we shouldn’t catch the bunnies, my brother continued carefully. “And turn them into house bunnies? Where we could control what and how much they eat?”

Mom was quiet for several moments, long enough that Caleb fidgeted anxiously. “Sold!” She slapped a hand to the thigh I wasn’t seated on. “We will catch them and make them house bunnies.” Caleb and I both bounced with delight and Mom put both arms back around my unsteady body to balance me again. “But not tonight, and not by chasing.” Her admonishing finger was mesmerizing because it still meant that I was getting my very own fluffy-fuzzy-bunny-kins.

My breath came fast as I considered what we could keep them in, and how we could train them. In a basket, we needed to go to the store and get a basket for our bunnies right now. I implored Mom with my eyes, but she only patted my head and gave me a kiss in my hair. “Come on you two.” She set me gently to the ground and straightened her clothes. “It’s time for bed.” She poured the jug of water she kept next to the fire onto the coals. They sizzled and went out as Caleb held out a hand for me to go inside with him, the thing under the shed sizzled too in its low growly voice. As if it also wanted pet bunnies.