“Gee,” said Meadowbrook, looking at him in awe. “I’m witnessing a big moment here.”
“Yeah. You bet. For the rest of my life, I’m, like, devoting myself to sugar. I’m gonna be the Dalai Lama of sugar.”
“Gee …,” said Meadowbrook. “The Dalai Lama of sugar.”
Mildred came across the garden and joined them. They rocked some more and watched an owl chasing chipmunks.
“Man, I bet that owl doesn’t know how much better those chipmunks would be sugarcoated,” said Flo.
“I think it’s time to go,” said Mildred.
On the way home Flo told Mildred he was planning to devote the rest of his life to sugar.
“In what capacity?” asked Mildred.
“I don’t know, man. I just know that this is my path.”
“Huh,” said Mildred. “Interesting. Flo, I want to buy that thirty acres going for sale next to us. Zanky owns it and she doesn’t want to farm it. She said she’d sell it to me for thirty thousand dollars.”
“Cool,” said Flo. “But isn’t that, like, really cheap?”
“Yeah, but Zanky doesn’t want to sell it to anyone who will build on it or use it for anything but organic gardening, so she’s willing to sacrifice. Zanky doesn’t care about money. And listen, you know Zanky has ten acres of her own under cultivation. She’s doing really well selling her vegetables at the Comox farmers’ market. Everyone is looking to buy locally. It’s a whole movement. Even people in the suburbs and city want organically, locally grown food. We could really make a difference. We could bring wholesome healthy chemical-free food to the people.”
“Go for it.”
“I can’t go for it. We don’t have thirty thousand dollars. We don’t have any money at all.”
“We have six dollars and twenty-seven cents,” said Flo sleepily as they floated up their driftwood-lined walkway in the light fragrant evening summer air. Flo collapsed on the couch on their porch and continued, “The Dalai Lama of sugar and the Mother Teresa of vegetables. It must be meant to be because it’s, like, all the food groups.”
Then he fell into a deep snoring slumber while Mildred watched the constellations twinkling through the porch screen and wondered if anything would come of their dreams, or if it would be like the time they decided to make a pedestrian walkway across Canada out of bottle caps.
The next day as Mildred and Flo walked to town to get their mail, Mildred was surprised to find that Flo was every bit as enthusiastic about his sugar plans as he had been the night before.
“But I still don’t get how you are going to be the Dalai Lama of sugar,” said Mildred plaintively after he had asserted this nineteen times.
“Mildred, I’m telling you. I’ve got a feeling about this. Like the universe is coalescing. Synchronicity. Everything is synchronicity. I can feel it. Can’t you?”
“I can feel something.”
“SEE?” said Flo, waving his arms around excitedly.
“But I think it’s a pebble in my shoe. I need new shoes.” Mildred sighed. “I wish we had more than six dollars.”
“Don’t forget the twenty-seven cents,” said Flo cheerfully.
They reached the post office and went in. Mildred sorted through the week’s worth of flyers and junk mail before pulling out a thick cream envelope.
“What’s this?” she said. “It’s for you, Flo.”
“You read it; I’m meditating on the cube,” said Flo. “Sugar cubes!”
“Right,” said Mildred, examining the postmark. “England? Do you know anyone in England?”
“Nope,” said Flo.
She ripped it open and read the letter inside twice. “Flo, do you have an Aunt Beatrice and an Uncle Bert?”
“Yeah, I’ve never met them but I send them my solstice letter every year. Someday, like, they should come to our winter solstice fete.”
“Too late. They’re dead. A car accident.”
“Oh man, that’s too bad. Being dead must really suck.”
“It says they owned a sweet shoppe. And, Flo, listen to this, they left it to us.”
“To us? Why us?”
“Because,” Mildred read, “Flo and Mildred are the only relatives flaky enough to drop everything and go to England and run our beloved sweet shoppe. Honestly, Flo, I don’t know if that was supposed to be a compliment. Anyhow, the lawyer goes on to say that if we don’t go there and keep their beloved sweet shoppe running, then it gets sold and the money goes to The Society for Depraved Cats.”
“I don’t know, Mildred, I don’t like taking money away from the cats.”
“FLO! Pay attention and think. If we go, we own a candy store. And the apartment over it. In England.”
“A candy store.”
“Yes.”
“Sugar.”
“Yes.”
“Someplace to go.”
“Yes.”
“Synchronicity,” said Flo.
“This lawyer says the sweet shoppe has been ‘a profitable fixture’ in the village of Bellyflop for some time.”
“Cool.”
“Yes, very cool, Flo, because that must mean that it makes money. If we take on the running of it, then we will make money. What does the lawyer say here? Last year in the month of August alone it made one hundred thousand pounds. Flo, if we take over and run the shoppe this August we’ll have more than enough money to buy Zanky’s thirty acres!”
“Then we could, like, give the rest to the cats? ’Cause I really feel bad about those cats, man. I mean, what has to happen to a cat that it becomes depraved?”
“Yes, Flo, whatever. The only problem,” said Mildred, biting on her knuckle, “is we have to find a way to get there.”
It was several evenings after Mrs. Bunny’s great recovery that she finally spilled the beans about her plans for herself and Mr. Bunny. Mr. Bunny had said many times that he was all ears, but Mrs. Bunny said she was awaiting the perfect stellar moment. It came one lovely summer’s eve with butterflies flitting about the hollyhocks, a freshly baked carrot cake (Mrs. Bunny was no novice when it came to springing plans on Mr. Bunny), some just-squeezed beet juice and the pleasant burble of the water feature Mrs. Bunny had installed in the flower garden, a recent addition, which drove Mr. Bunny nuts because you could not turn it off.
“Don’t you find it soothing?” Mrs. Bunny asked Mr. Bunny while placidly knitting next year’s long underwear out of used dental floss.
“Mrs. Bunny, I do not ALWAYS wish to be soothed. Sometimes I like to be WORKED UP!”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Bunny. “Think of your blood pressure.”
“I can think of little else since you put that water fountain in.”
“Water feature. Have some cake,” said Mrs. Bunny, cutting him a large piece.
“Mumble, mumble,” said Mr. Bunny. It was very difficult to remonstrate with a mouth full of nuts and raisins. Mrs. Bunny smiled smugly.
“Now, Mr. Bunny, we’ve had two weeks since our last adventure ended. It is time we delved into something else.”
“Mumble, mumble,” said Mr. Bunny.
“I knew you would agree. And as I lay upon my bed of pain, looking back on my life and my girlhood dreams, I realized there was one ambition that I had yet to fulfill.”
“Mumble, mumble,” said Mr. Bunny. Then he swallowed. “You’re not going to start going on again about ‘teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony,’ are you?”
“Mr. Bunny, that was a Coke commercial.”
“You seemed very adamant at the time.”
“It was just a catchy tune. No, this is serious,” said Mrs. Bunny, cutting him another piece of cake. “And I would like you to be serious for a change.”
“Mumble, mumble,” said Mr. Bunny. Then he swallowed. “You’re not going to suggest as you once did that someone should ‘fly you to the moon and let you play among the stars’?”
“That was after a Frank Sinatra special. Really, Mr. Bunny, anyone would think you could not tel
l the difference between Mrs. Bunny’s career ambitions and her musical renditions. Have some more cake.” She cut Mr. Bunny another thin slice.
“I give up,” said Mr. Bunny, taking another big bite.
“I want to be queen!” squealed Mrs. Bunny.
Mr. Bunny swallowed. “I hope you are kidding.”
“Why would I kid about such a thing?” asked Mrs. Bunny somewhat testily. She had sat up very tall when she had made her announcement and had anticipated a response more along the lines of “and how a tiara would suit you, Mrs. Bunny!” “I’ve been thinking of it ever since I saw Prince Charles give out the awards at Madeline’s school. How well he deported himself. What a charming man. I’m a charming bunny. I should be royal.”
“Look, Mrs. Bunny, I have indulged your various ventures in the past, worn fedoras, chased about after secret decoders, but I will be darned if I’m going to put on a crown.”
“Who said anything about you? Indeed, I had envisioned you more as a footman,” said Mrs. Bunny reflectively.
“A …,” Mr. Bunny began, then calmed down and reminded himself that Mrs. Bunny had recently had a fever. No doubt her brains had fried. “Have some more beet juice,” he said kindly, and poured her a glass.
“You see, you’d make an excellent footman,” said Mrs. Bunny.
“I am not going to be a footman,” said Mr. Bunny. “Whatever else may happen, I can promise you that.”
“Well, then you could be like Prince Philip. Nobody really knows what he is.”
“What are you talking about? He’s a prince. It says so right in his name.”
“How can he be? His son Prince Charles is a prince. How can they both be princes?”
“I do not know. The vagaries of the monarchy are beyond me,” said Mr. Bunny, cutting himself yet more cake. He suspected quite rightly that Mrs. Bunny was not going to comment on his cake consumption while petitioning him to aid in making her queen. “Anyhow, Mrs. Bunny, you cannot be queen. There is already a queen. And you have to be born into the monarchy. You cannot simply decide one day that that’s it, it’s queen time or something.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Mr. Bunny. Don’t you remember when Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew and they just made her a duchess on the spot? That’s what they do, they just pick titles out of the air and give them to people. ‘Here, you be a duchess,’ they say, ‘and you over there, guess what, yesterday you were nothing, today you’re an earl.’ Why, it’s nothing for Queen Elizabeth to make me a queen. She’s got all those titles at her disposal just lying around waiting for a deserving bunny. And besides, the queen is a human queen. Isn’t it time there was a queen of the bunnies?”
“Well, time or not, it looks like a thankless job to me,” said Mr. Bunny.
“No, no, it isn’t at all!” squealed Mrs. Bunny, losing her studied cool. “You get to live in a castle and wear pretty dresses and go to balls!”
“I am almost certain there is more to it than that,” said Mr. Bunny. “Besides, you said that this was our next adventure. What’s in it for me?”
“The knowledge that you have helped Mrs. Bunny fulfill a long-standing dream. Also, probably, a carrot cake a day for life.”
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Bunny.
“What’s this about daily cakes?” came a familiar voice, and Mrs. Treaclebunny hopped into the yard. Mrs. Treaclebunny lived across the way. She often came over to borrow the Bunnys’ lawn fertilizers and carrot scrapers and dental picks, toothpaste and toilet-bowl cleaner. She just as often came over uninvited for dinner. The Bunnys had never been able to figure out what to do about her. Now she settled herself happily into one of the Bunnys’ lawn chairs and grabbed a piece of cake.
“Yum,” she said.
“Have some cake,” said Mr. Bunny dryly.
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, jamming the last bite into her cheek and cutting a second slice. “You know, if you added some grated zucchini to this, it wouldn’t be so dry and tasteless.”
Mr. Bunny tore at his ears, but Mrs. Treaclebunny never seemed to notice such things.
“I was just telling Mr. Bunny that I would like to be queen,” said Mrs. Bunny. “It’s a long-standing dream of mine.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny. “Well, it wouldn’t suit me. Have to go around cutting ribbons and shaking paws. No, thank you. I suspect you’re off to England, then.”
“England?” said Mrs. Bunny.
“Oh yes, you can’t become queen here. If you want to become queen you have to go to England and get coronated.”
“What, may I ask, is coronated?” asked Mr. Bunny. “It sounds painful.”
“Oh, it is. That’s when they clap a crown on your ears.”
“A very heavy crown, I should imagine,” said Mr. Bunny. “No doubt your ears never fluff properly again.”
“It’s a big deal,” Mrs. Treaclebunny went on. “Lots of other royalty show up. They’re all in each other’s pockets: the German royalty, the French royalty, the Iowan royalty.”
“Oh, Mr. Bunny!” said Mrs. Bunny. “We would have duchessy pals!”
“Oh yeah,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny. “And I suspect Hollywood sends a few stars and there’s a red carpet and people taking your picture and you get in all the magazines.”
“You certainly seem to know a lot about it,” said Mr. Bunny stiffly.
“Oh yes, Mr. Treaclebunny—God rest his poor dead desiccated paws—and I used to follow it all. We were quite the royalty buffs. Hello! magazine stays on those royalty like white on rice. Anyhow, I know that when it happens, it happens in England, so if you really want to be queen, Mrs. Bunny, you’d better just skedaddle yourself across the pond.”
“What pond?” asked Mr. Bunny.
“Bunnies who are really sophisticated call the Atlantic Ocean the pond,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny in her most superior tone. Her property across the way had an ocean view. It had always been a sore point with Mr. and Mrs. Bunny.
“Oh, Mr. Bunny, a trip! We haven’t taken a trip since … ever. And we could go by ship and Mrs. Bunny could pack all her long sparkly formal gowns and we could dance cheek to cheek to the ship’s orchestra every night and gaze at the moonlight on the open waters of the great sea!”
“How very poetic, Mrs. Bunny. We must get you your own spot on National Public Radio,” said Mr. Bunny. “But what formal gowns are you talking about? I know I have only a passing acquaintance with your wardrobe, but I do not recall ever seeing any long sparkly formal gowns.”
“Well, of course I shall have to shop for those,” said Mrs. Bunny.
“At Bunnydale’s,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny, and she and Mrs. Bunny nodded to each other.
Bunnydale’s had the first long sparkly formal gown department in Rabbitville, and all the female bunnies had been plotting occasions to wear them. So far this had been a bust. All of Mrs. Bunny’s female friends except for Mrs. Treaclebunny were in a hat club with her. It was their unhappy conclusion, after much discussion, that Rabbitville was an unfortunately casual sort of town.
“I see,” said Mr. Bunny. “Mrs. Bunny, you know my one tried-and-true credo is never leave the hutch! It’s inevitably expensive and tedious and dangerous. Travel is—”
“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Bunny hastily. “Tedium relieved by terror. But, Mr. Bunny, how can I be coronated if we don’t leave the hutch?”
“You can’t,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny, helping herself to the rest of the carrot cake.
“For years I have been carting home brochures for foreign climes only to have something come up. Usually a baby bunny,” said Mrs. Bunny confidentially to Mrs. Treaclebunny. Mr. and Mrs. Bunny had twelve children but they were all grown and gone.
“Well,” said Mr. Bunny, clearly wavering, “you’re not getting me on an airplane.”
“They make you go in a crate,” said Mrs. Bunny to Mrs. Treaclebunny. “In storage. And they don’t even give you any drinks or peanuts.”
“And then they quarantine yo
u for two weeks,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny. “You needn’t tell me. Mr. Treaclebunny once traveled to England on business that way and he never fully recovered. After that, when we made our European jaunts it was ocean liners for us!”
“Exactly. An ocean voyage with long sparkly formal gowns is certainly the way to go. No pooey airplanes, you are so right, Mr. Bunny. You are a discerning rabbit. Carrot cakes for life, carrot cakes for life,” chanted Mrs. Bunny in what she hoped was a hypnotic fashion. “Besides, you promised. Even though you hate leaving the hutch, you said that someday after the baby bunnies were grown you would take a trip with me.”
“Curses,” said Mr. Bunny resignedly. “Hoisted with my own rabbito petard. But I am nothing if not fair. Humph! Well, you’d better keep those carrot cakes coming, that’s all I can say. In the meantime, I’ll get the suitcases out of the basement.”
“Excellent,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny, sitting back and pouring herself a fourth cup of beet juice. “When do we leave?”
When Madeline got home from her weekend at Katherine’s she found Flo and Mildred standing on the porch. Next to them were three suitcases.
“What are you wearing?” asked Madeline in shock.
Flo had on a brightly printed Hawaiian shirt over a pair of flowing white pants. Mildred was wearing aqua pedal pushers with a beaded tunic. They both had on straw hats and new sandals.
“Gee, I would have thought she would ask about the suitcases first,” said Flo.
“Or the people all over our property,” said Mildred.
“I was going to ask about that, but …” Madeline took a step closer and fingered Mildred’s shiny tunic. “Is that polyester?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t had time to look at the label,” said Mildred, handing Madeline a neat pile of similar clothes. “We’ve had a lot to do in a short time. We just came back from shopping for cruisewear this afternoon. Here’s yours. Everything’s new. Even your sandals are new.”
“We’ve been very busy,” said Flo.
Lord and Lady Bunny—Almost Royalty! Page 3
