“That’s it. We’re making this shoppe pay if it’s the last thing we do!” said Mildred.
“Hey, man, you’re not doing this just to spite Lady Henderson, are you?” asked Flo.
“Yes, Flo, I am. This is spite profit.”
“Wow,” said Flo. “But, like, how?”
“I … I …,” said Mildred, appearing to deflate again. “I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea.”
Madeline’s parents seemed to have forgotten the bunnies hidden in the corner, but she hadn’t. They had turned up, as they always seemed to, just when she needed them. She had faith in Mr. Bunny. Mr. Bunny was always full of ideas. They weren’t always the best ideas, but he had them one after another. He would surely save the day.
It was, of course, a joyous reunion between the Bunnys and Madeline and Katherine. They ran outside the shoppe so that the Bunnys could tell them how they had ended up in Bellyflop.
“I can’t believe that just as I get Mildred to agree to give me her vegetable money for a college fund, we can’t afford to buy the land to grow the vegetables!” said Madeline.
“I can’t believe the candy shoppe doesn’t make money. Who doesn’t like candy?” said Mrs. Bunny. “Mr. Bunny is very fond of black licorice.”
“And jelly beans!” said Mr. Bunny.
“We’ll just have to find a way,” said Mrs. Bunny. “That must be our first priority in England, Mr. Bunny.”
“What about your social climbing?” asked Mr. Bunny.
“The female of the species is an adept multitasker,” said Mrs. Bunny. “We task. We task all over the place.”
“Mr. Bunny, I thought maybe you’d have one of your good ideas,” said Madeline.
“Ah!” said Mr. Bunny, putting his hands behind him and pacing back and forth. “Indeed. Indeedy, deedy do. Mr. Bunny is a wealth of ideas.”
“Try for one,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny sourly. “And don’t forget we need to get back to the castle in time for lunch. The duchess has invited an assortment of the titled gentry.”
“Oh, Mr. Bunny!” said Mrs. Bunny. “The full assortment!”
“Mrs. Bunny, calm yourself. This is no time to drool over dukes. We’re busy saving the day,” said Mr. Bunny.
“I can’t think why no one has asked me what to do,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny. “I’m the only one here with any actual business experience. Mr. Bunny was on the carrot marketing board and Mrs. Bunny made lint art—”
“Isn’t the carrot marketing board a business?” interrupted Katherine.
“To rabbits,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny, “anything involving carrots is practically a religion. Now, Mr. Treaclebunny, God rest his poor dead festering feet, and I ran a real business. We had a rubber factory. I can give you important advice. I will dole it out in dribs and drabs so as not to overwhelm your brains. Here is the first drib: I think we must get the lay of the land. We must check out the other shoppes in town and see who is successful and why. I may know the ins and outs of business in Canada, but this is England. Their ins are different.”
“And their outs,” said Mrs. Bunny, nodding.
“No,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny. “Their outs are very much the same.”
Madeline dashed into the shoppe to tell Mildred and Flo that she and Katherine were going exploring. They just nodded glumly and waved her away. No one had come into the shoppe except Lady Henderson, and they were anticipating a long, dull, profitless day.
Then the bunnies and the girls tromped up and down the main street of Bellyflop. There was a bookstore and a tailor. There was a small grocery and a chemist. Everyone seemed to be doing a thriving business. Even the tailor.
“I find this most odd,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny. “Does everyone need tailoring but no one needs candy?”
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Bunny. “I must put on my thinking cap.”
He looked as if he were about to do it that very second, so Mrs. Treaclebunny looked at her watch and yelled, “LUNCH!” and began hopping toward the castle.
“She’s rather abrupt, isn’t she?” said Katherine.
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Mr. Bunny, and they hopped after her to the castle.
Once inside the castle, they found that the whole hunting party had assembled with cocktails. The duchess took one look at Madeline and Katherine and stood up on her chair to cry, “HUMANS!” in the exact way some people react to mice.
All conversation stopped.
“They’re our pets,” said Mrs. Bunny, clearing her throat.
“Give them bowls in the kitchen, then. Don’t bring them in here,” said the duchess.
“I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Bunny to the girls as she led them into the kitchen and the cook set a couple of bowls of chopped vegetables on the floor for them.
“That’s all right,” said Madeline. “Just do what you have to do to be queen. We understand.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on your pets,” said the cook. “They’re kind of shaggy. When’s the last time they were groomed?”
“How dare you!” said Katherine.
“Sit!” said the cook.
The girls sat.
Mrs. Bunny looked vexed, but of course, she could say nothing. Instead she slunk back into the dining room and found her place card. She was seated between an earl hedgehog and a duke hedgehog. They both slurped their soup.
“So,” said the earl. “Visiting, I hear. And had a hot year wherever you’re from, judging by your coat.”
“What?” said Mrs. Bunny, who was rattled by all the titles and was busily trying to memorize who was who, in order to figure out where to begin her social climbing.
“Lack of quills. Been shedding a bit too, I see,” said the earl. “And growing an awful lot of fur.” He shuddered.
“OH!” said Mrs. Bunny, turning red.
“That’s a very peculiar name you have too,” said a viscountess, reading Mrs. Bunny’s place card. “With no hog at the end. Are you sure it isn’t Bunnyhog and Treaclebunnyhog?”
“Uh, uh, uh,” stammered Mrs. Bunny, blushing.
“They’re from Canada!” said Duchess Bungleyhog.
Everybody nodded. That explained everything.
“Lot of beavers there,” said the viceroy, turning to the vicereine.
“Well, they can’t help that,” said the marchioness from across the table. She was one of the more liberal hedgehogs.
“I suppose the hedgehogs in Canada have evolved to have such long ears as yours so as to be found when buried under snow!” said the earl with sudden inspiration. He was quite pleased with himself. It had been twelve years since he’d had an original thought.
“Tell me, how fares the Canadian muskeg?” asked the marquis, turning to Mr. Bunny.
“Musky. Oooo, what’s this I see?” said Mr. Bunny as the footman approached him with a platter. “Fish sticks!”
When he could not get as many as he liked with the serving fork, he tipped the platter that the footman was holding and poured a pile onto his plate. “Yum, yum. Lightened your load, my good man!”
Mrs. Bunny shredded the napkin in her lap. Mr. Bunny was going to become all jokey with the servants. Mrs. Bunny could never decide which was more embarrassing, Mr. Bunny in his jocular moods or Mr. Bunny in his cantankerous moods. They both bore watching.
“I suppose that explains the fur,” whispered the margrave. “Intermarriage with beavers.”
“Nonsense, Stinky,” boomed Duchess Bungleyhog, who had overheard. “They’re from the less-quilled side of the family. From the hedgehog genus Nonpricklum. They’re born practically quill-less.”
There was a gasp about the table and then everyone looked politely away.
“How unfortunate,” said the vicereine to Mr. Bunny. “I shall tell no one.”
“Tell anyone you want,” said Mr. Bunny, shrugging. “Just pass the mashed potatoes.”
Mrs. Bunny tried to kick Mr. Bunny under the table but only managed to kick some heavily quilled leg. Whoever
it was didn’t seem to feel it, but Mrs. Bunny got a quill stuck in her toe. It would make wearing high heels nearly impossible for weeks to come.
“Oh dear, oh dear, Your Earldom,” said Mrs. Bunny, talking rapidly to cover up for Mr. Bunny’s swiftly mounting faux pas. The earl turned to her, but this was where Mrs. Bunny came a cropper. She had nothing to say. Whatever did you talk to an earl about? She doubted he’d be interested in her lint art. Or her used-dental-floss knitting.
“Oh my, have you seen the new, er, hat styles this season?” she finally inquired.
“No,” said the earl.
That might have ended it, but he continued to stare at her with soup dribbling down his chin.
Mrs. Bunny looked toward Mr. Bunny beseechingly. She could always count on him to rescue her when she ran out of conversation. Mr. Bunny needed very little encouragement to run off at the mouth. Then she decided this was such a good observation that she got out her writing notebook and wrote:
Mr. Bunny needed little encouragement to engage in displays of verbal diarrhea.
She was chuckling over her way with words when the earl startled her by booming, “What are you doing?”
“I am taking notes. I’m a writer,” said Mrs. Bunny, trying to look modest.
“Good God, you don’t WORK, do you?” asked the earl.
Mrs. Bunny looked beseechingly at Mr. Bunny again, but he had built up a fierce appetite that morning with all the hopping back and forth across moats and he had piled his plate high with mashed potatoes, turnip greens and boiled mashed asparagus and was now attempting to balance a mound of beets upon his already overloaded plate. It was a task of some architectural difficulty and required all his concentration.
“My, these mashed asparagus are delicious,” said Mrs. Bunny in desperation, spooning up a heaping mound and cramming them into her mouth. “I shall have to ask the duchess for her recipe.” Unfortunately, in her haste she had taken too large a mouthful of their mashed greeny goodness. She coughed expulsively and some of it spurted out, attaching in sticky mounds to the earl’s shirt and quilly chest.
“OH DRAT!” said Mrs. Bunny.
Now everyone at the table except the earl was staring at her. He was staring at his shirt.
There was a long ominous silence.
“Oh dear, is that my mashed asparagus on your shirtfront?” Mrs. Bunny finally asked. Then, because everyone continued to stare silently and something else seemed to be required of her, she spooned up a forkful from between two of his buttons and said, “YUM!”
There was another moment of silence, during which even Mr. Bunny stared at her quizzically as if he couldn’t quite place from which roadside ditch or bog he had found her. Then conversation resumed around the table, and the earl turned to his other tablemate and attempted no more polite conversation with Mrs. Bunny.
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Bunny again. Now no one was talking to her and it was very lonely. Maybe Mr. Bunny is right, she thought, maybe I should engage less in haberdashery chitchat and more in current affairs. I will read the Bunny Post first thing tomorrow. She turned with sudden inspiration to the earless, who sat on her other side. “Have you ever noticed how earless, the feminine form of earl, if looked at differently is not earl-ess but ear-less?”
The earless gave her a long flat look and began a conversation with the viscount.
Mrs. Bunny blushed and blushed. I am banal, she said to herself. Very, very banal.
“What did you say your title was?” asked the duke.
“Mrs.,” squeaked Mrs. Bunny.
“I see,” said the duke. “Canada, eh? Are you friends with the Bronfman hedgehogs? The Mulroney hedgehogs? Any of that crowd?”
“Er,” said Mrs. Bunny. “We are certainly in a crowd. You know, the, uh, lots-of-important-types crowd.”
“What brings you to these parts? I thought it was prime hedgehog season in Canada. Everyone finally out of hibernation. You do hibernate, don’t you?”
“Oh, we hiber, we don’t always nate,” said Mrs. Bunny, a bundle of fluster.
“What is it you want to do here?” asked the earless. “Our hedges are all spoken for, you know.”
“I say, is that what you Canadian hedgehogs are doing here? Come to England to steal our hedges because you’ve run out of your own? Explain to us, please, what your country is besides a boggy beaver backwater.” And thus, having attained international alliterative excellence, the duke sat back in his chair, as did everyone else, and stared at her silently. Mrs. Bunny was getting very tired of being stared at. They were politely awaiting her answer. All except Mr. Bunny. He was making good headway in his attack on the victuals. By consistent and steady forking up, he had almost made his way through the mashed asparagus and was about to move on to the potatoes. He stared at his plate with fixed attention.
Mrs. Bunny didn’t answer. In fact, she thought she might be having a heart attack. It was so hard to tell under all that fur. She tried to take her pulse but a new outcry arose from down the table.
“Of course, the Canadians want our carefully stolen hedgerows!” cried the czarina.
“First it’s the hedges, then it’s our Tetley tea.”
“Yes, that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Is it the Tetley tea or the hedgerows? You’re here to steal the best of Britain and claim it as your own!”
“It’s our clotted cream!”
“It’s not your clotted cream,” muttered Mr. Bunny to himself through a mouthful of mashed asparagus. “I can guarantee that.”
“That’s what you want indeed!”
“Or is it? Tell us! Tell us right now what it is you want!”
Poor Mrs. Bunny. Suddenly she felt herself in a fun-house hall of mirrors, with all the distorted faces crying, “TELL US!” It was doing her heart attack no good at all.
She pulled at her ears and bellowed, “I JUST WANT TO BE QUEEN!”
There was silence at the table.
Then the laughter began.
“I don’t suppose,” said the Duchess of Bungleyhog to the three bunnies as she showed them out after lunch, “we can call your first attempt at social climbing a great success.”
“I think perhaps spitting mounds of asparagus onto others is better saved for the family board,” said Mr. Bunny mildly to Mrs. Bunny while nonchalantly pulling a toothpick from the ever-ready supply in his pocket and using it assiduously.
Mrs. Bunny just stared at him tiredly. None of the things she could think of to say were ladylike.
“We may be able to patch things up,” said the duchess. “First of all, before making any more social forays, I suggest you buy a title. Here is a list of available ones. They are only forty-nine ninety-nine. Plus shipping and handling.”
The bunnies sat down, and after long perusing, Mr. Bunny said there was nothing he would like to be so much as Mr. Bunny so you could count him right out.
“What about pharaoh?” said Mrs. Bunny enticingly.
“I decline all titles,” said Mr. Bunny. “The whole thing is a sham. A sham and a scam.”
“How about czar?” asked Mrs. Bunny, wringing her paws. “Wouldn’t that be fun? You could buy one of those big furry Russian hats.”
“It’s always about the hats with you, isn’t it?” said Mr. Bunny.
“But you can’t come to any more social-climbing events with us unless you have a title,” said Mrs. Bunny.
“Suits me fine,” said Mr. Bunny, and he refused to even look at the list of titles after that.
“Oh, never mind him, every party has a pooper,” said Mrs. Treaclebunny, who was reading the list. “Oooo! What’s this? Yang di-Pertuan Agong. It says it’s Malaysian for ‘heavenly supreme lord.’ That’s the ticket. You notice the supreme, Mrs. Bunny? That means you won’t be able to find a title to top mine.”
“That’s just like her,” Mr. Bunny whispered in Mrs. Bunny’s ear. “Hogging supreme lorddom for herself.” And then this suddenly struck him as funny. A sound erupted from
him. At first he did not recognize what it was. It was unlike any of the usual eruptions he was known to have.
“Mr. Bunny, was that a giggle?” asked Mrs. Treaclebunny.
“No! No! No, indeed,” said Mr. Bunny. “It was a burp.”
“It didn’t sound like a burp.”
“It was a British burp.”
“Why are you burping in British?” asked Mrs. Treaclebunny.
“Why wouldn’t I?” asked Mr. Bunny, pleased he had, as usual, come up with such a clever rejoinder that it left Mrs. Treaclebunny without a reply. But privately he was thinking, This is no good. I am spending too much time in female company. The next thing you know I will be wanting to watch television shows about picking wedding dresses. I must do something about this, and fast.
“You can’t be a heavenly supreme lord, Mrs. Treaclebunny, how many times do I have to tell you that?” said the duchess witheringly. “You have to have a female title. Besides, what is the good of having a title no one can pronounce? Also, I can’t say for sure, but I think you might be expected to go about answering people’s prayers. Frankly, I don’t think you have it in you. Start small, that’s my advice.”
“Small schmall. If I’m going to spend forty-nine ninety-nine I want to be something supreme. I like to get my money’s worth,” retorted Mrs. Treaclebunny, who was tired of being pushed around by her quilled relatives. She was reading the list of titles with a dissatisfied air. It was hard to go from heavenly supreme lord to the more land-based honors. “Well, I suppose I could start as a baroness. I notice there weren’t any at lunch. I’d stand out.”
“You already stand out, thanks to the reckless way you treat your quills. I sent you all out this morning charmingly bequilled and now look at you,” said the duchess.
It was true, the quills had a tendency to get caught on things, ripping the fur in little patches. The bunnies stared at each other in dismay.
“We look like we’re molting,” said Mrs. Bunny dismally. “Wait a second—if I can buy the title of baroness, why don’t I just buy the title of queen and be done with it?”
Lord and Lady Bunny—Almost Royalty! Page 11
