“Yes, we must find these foxes, not just to get your parents back but to begin my research! That’s it. I’ve made my decision. I’m done with this decoding nonsense. I’m going to do something meaningful with the rest of my life. I’m going to study comparative steering among species. How do deer negotiate roundabouts, as opposed to, say, chipmunks?”
“Oh, Uncle, let’s get you some more Tylenol,” said Madeline. “Maybe we can pack you in ice until you make sense.”
“No time, it’s after the foxes we go!” said Uncle Runyon, struggling out of bed.
Madeline pushed him back into it. “You mustn’t get up. You’re delirious with fever. You’re crazy, you’re—”
Uncle Runyon, who had taken hold of her sweater to steady himself, ended up with his hand in her pocket in an effort to keep his balance, and in doing so, he pulled out the file card that Madeline had found and forgotten about.
He sat back on his pillows and read it. “Aha! Fanny Fox’s Canned Rabbit Products and By-products. By God, they’re not just driving, they’re running factories! There’s a Nobel Prize here somewhere!”
“Oh, Uncle, really, it’s probably just some lady with the last name of Fox. Where’s your Tylenol?” Madeline was frantically searching the bedside table while her uncle read the file card.
“Very interesting—it’s in code,” he said. “Of course, that’s why they wanted me. They wanted me to decode this. And really, I don’t see why, it’s just a r …” And with that, Uncle Runyon fell backward on his pillow.
“Uncle!” cried Madeline. “Uncle!”
But it was no good. Uncle Runyon had finally fallen into the coma he had been itching to have.
Madeline had the foresight to pick up the note and the file card before racing down to get Jeeves. He seemed as startled by her presence as by her announcement of Uncle Runyon’s coma, but like the faithful and good manservant he was, he didn’t voice his surprise. Instead, he telephoned the doctor, who came and confirmed Uncle Runyon’s coma. The doctor promised he would send a nurse to stay at the manor house. Then Jeeves readied a guest room for Madeline.
Madeline went to it gratefully and sank into bed. It was three a.m., and she was too tired to try to think of what she must do next. She watched out the window as the last embers from the extinguished bonfire drifted up into the heavens. Flo and Mildred had never gotten themselves into a situation that she hadn’t been able to fix. Would she wake up tomorrow stymied by this one? Or perhaps wake up to find out it was all a dream. Or that she was merely completely insane. That would be a huge relief, she thought crankily. Or maybe I’ll just have a coma. That seems like a popular option. She thought of Flo and Mildred with their jewelry making and candle burning and penchant for being kidnapped and Uncle Runyon with his spider watching and comas. Grown-ups! she thought. And then she fell asleep.
MR. AND MRS. BUNNY BECOME DETECTIVES!
“Mr. Bunny, I have had an idea!”
Mr. and Mrs. Bunny were sitting in the back garden of their new house, enjoying the fine summer morning and watching the smoke rise from some fire on the horizon.
“Do tell,” he said.
“I think we should become detectives.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“What about my job with the carrot marketing board?”
“Quit.”
“And your job collecting lint and creating art from it?”
“That is not a job, that is a calling. But to heck with it. Let’s go buy fedoras.”
Mr. Bunny grimaced. He suspected that many of Mrs. Bunny’s sudden enthusiasms were just thinly disguised excuses to go shopping. But he knew better than to bring this up.
“Detective licenses?”
“I think fedoras are enough. Anyone who sees a bunny in a fedora will not feel the need to see a license.”
“It is very hard to find fedoras with holes cut out for our long and fuzzy ears, Mrs. Bunny. On the other hand, if we go to town we can drive our bright and shiny red Smart car.”
The car, as you will recall, had been included in the sale of the house, but so far the Bunnys had had no occasion to try it out.
Mrs. Bunny frowned. She had reservations about such a vehicle herself. For one thing, Mr. Bunny was a little too fond of going around the house pretending to shift gears and murmuring “Zoom zoom” in a loud and speeding way. She shuddered to think what he would do when he finally got his long and floppy foot on the gas pedal. Secondly, Mr. Bunny didn’t know how to drive. She felt sure this was going to be a problem.
“Mr. Bunny, I think we could use some exercise. Let us leave the car for another day.”
“Nonsense, you’ve been hopping around that garden all morning. You’re hopped out. What we need is a pleasant summer morning drive. Zoom. Zoom.”
“I knew it,” muttered Mrs. Bunny to herself.
By the time she had her purse and shawl and had locked the door against the possibility of foxes, Mr. Bunny was already behind the wheel, looking flummoxed.
“I just don’t get it,” he said when Mrs. Bunny got in. “What makes it go?”
“What have you tried?”
“I have sat here saying all the car-starting sounds I could think of, including ‘zoom zoom’ and ‘zuppety zuppety,’ which always makes me go, Mrs. Bunny, but the car has not gotten the idea.”
“Maybe it has an On button. Like a light switch.”
“Please, Mrs. Bunny,” said Mr. Bunny. “Don’t display your automotive ignorance. That is a particularly ridiculous idea.”
“Well, then, what is that slot there?”
“Where?”
“On the side of the steering wheel.”
“That’s …” Mr. Bunny studied it furiously from all angles. “That’s where you keep your parking coins.”
“I don’t believe a coin would fit in there,” said Mrs. Bunny. “Unless it was a very bendy-shaped coin.”
“Would,” said Mr. Bunny.
“Well, I can be of no more help.”
“You could get out and push,” said Mr. Bunny. “I’m fairly certain if you pushed and I steered we could get this thing to town in very little more time than it would take to hop. Particularly when you factor in going down hills. Of course, at the bottom of the hills I would have to wait for you to catch up and you would have to hop very fast so as not to keep me waiting.”
Mrs. Bunny’s answer to this was to get out and start hopping down the road. She trusted Mr. Bunny would catch up when he was in his right mind again. And indeed, shortly afterward, who should hop up behind her but Mr. Bunny himself.
And then all was silence until an hour later, when, drenched in sweat (merely misted in the case of Mrs. Bunny), the Bunnys found themselves on Main Street. Rabbits abounded. All hopping. All shopping.
“Have you ever seen so many bunnies in one place at one time?” asked Mr. Bunny.
“And not a shotgun in sight,” said Mrs. Bunny. “It’s like a bunny miracle.”
But Mr. Bunny did not seem to be paying attention, until Mrs. Bunny poked him, and then he said, “Mrs. Bunny, as I live and breathe! Look! Across the street.” He pointed.
“Oh, Mr. Bunny!” cried Mrs. Bunny. “A hat shoppe!”
And then she poked him again. Not because he wasn’t paying attention but because when she did it the first time she found she liked it.
Mrs. Bunny might think she was getting away with this, but Mr. Bunny was silently counting the pokes to pay her back later.
The Bunnies hopped up and opened the door, which caused a little bell at the top of it to tinkle. Mr. Bunny had never come across a tinkling door before. It startled him so much that he fell against a display of bonnets and it was lilies, lilies everywhere.
A proprietress bunny came hopping quickly from behind a counter and extricated him. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said.
“No, I am so sorry,” Mr. Bunny said gallantly, although privately he thought people who attached bells to their doors got what t
hey deserved.
“Not at all,” said the proprietress, picking beads and feathers out of Mr. Bunny’s fur. “It does have a startling effect, I find, on bunnies who have just come up from the country and have never heard a shoppe bell. Trust me, you are not the first to find yourself splayed among the hats.”
Mrs. Bunny bristled at this. She did not want to be thought of as a country bunny, true though it might be.
“I was not at all startled,” she said. “All the best shoppes have bells. Some even have whistles.”
“Really?” said the proprietress. “I have never heard a whistling shoppe.”
“Oh? Pity.”
The proprietress was busy picking the last of the sequins off poor befuddled Mr. Bunny. He surveyed the wreckage he had caused and decided that since he would be no good putting things back in their proper places, he needn’t even try. Mr. Bunny’s conscience was always extremely easy to placate. It was what he liked best about it.
“Anyhow,” said Mr. Bunny, “we have come looking for fedoras.”
“Ah,” said the proprietress. “Then you are shopping for yourself, sir?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bunny, who did so like being called sir. “And a fedora for Mrs. Bunny too.”
“Really?” said the proprietress. “The fedoras are kept, you see, in the men’s section.”
“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Bunny, “that is because such a small nonwhistling town is too tiny to support a fedora-wearing female bunny population.”
Mr. Bunny and the proprietress stared at her blankly.
“I’m sure you’re right, whatever you said,” said the proprietress. “Well, let me show you what I’ve got. It isn’t much, I must warn you. It might not suit such urbane bunnies as yourselves.”
And Mrs. Bunny could swear there was the merest hint of sarcasm in the proprietress’s tone. It made Mrs. Bunny want to deck her.
“Oh, Mr. Bunny,” said Mrs. Bunny in excitement when the proprietress had hopped to a hat rack where several fedoras of different size and color were arranged. “They have earholes!”
“You have only seen earholeless fedoras?” asked the proprietress. “Perhaps then your last town was a human one?”
Mrs. Bunny paled. She had been found out! She wasn’t an urbane bunny after all. She was just another country bunny who had lived on the outskirts of a human town. There was no lower status amongst bunnies.
Mr. Bunny, as usual, was clueless. He was busy examining fedoras. “These are remarkably smooth and comfortable. They look freshly brushed too,” he said admiringly.
“Yes, I belong to a hatters’ club, and we do all the upkeep on the hats. We are not a hat shoppe that just lets our hats sit around gathering dust. We take good care of them until they find a happy home on top of some fuzzy head,” said the proprietress.
“A hat club!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunny, despite herself. “Oh, how wonderful! To belong to such a thing! You must be the happiest bunny on earth!”
“You are welcome to join,” said the proprietress. “We are always looking for new members. We are not such a popular club as you might think, even though our refreshments are of the best carroty sort.”
“Oh, Mr. Bunny! To join a club on my first day in town!” squealed Mrs. Bunny. “This is so kind of you. Mr. Bunny, I would like the white fedora, if it’s all the same to you.”
“No good,” said Mr. Bunny.
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Bunny, who had put it on and was admiring herself in the mirror.
“I think she looks very charming in it,” said the proprietress.
“Yes, but it stands out. A detective does not want to stand out. We need plain brown fedoras that will blend in with our fuzzy ears and whiskers and not shout out ‘Detective on the premises!’ ”
“I beg to differ, Mr. Bunny,” said Mrs. Bunny, who was growing more attached to the white hat by the minute. “Any fedora at all is sure to scream out ‘Detective on the premises!’ That is, in fact, the point of the fedora.”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Bunny. “But you don’t want it to shout out ‘Detective too stupid to even try to disguise herself!’ now do you, Mrs. Bunny? Particularly when you are supposed to be undercover.”
And Mrs. Bunny had to allow that one did not, and so she put back the lovely white hat and handed two brown ones to the proprietress, who rang up the purchase. While Mr. Bunny fumbled with his bills and coins, Mrs. Bunny said, “Tell me, is there a fire beyond the village? From our cottage we seemed to see one in this direction.”
“Oh, that comes from the manor house. We don’t know what they burn or why. Indeed, our newspaper reporters would like to do a story about it, but of course they are too timid to go on the grounds. So they just write stories in which they speculate. Occasionally when they tire of this they make things up.”
“That sounds like fun. Let’s become reporter bunnies,” said Mrs. Bunny to Mr. Bunny.
“One short-lived enthusiasm at a time, Mrs. Bunny,” said Mr. Bunny, handing over the correct change. “For now it sounds to me like what this town needs is a pair of detecting bunnies on the case.”
“Well, good luck,” said the proprietress. “Now, Mrs. Bunny, do come Friday to the hat club meeting. We meet in this very shoppe. Bring a carrot cake.”
The Bunnys said their goodbyes and hopped back outside.
“I do not like being told what kind of cake to bring,” said Mrs. Bunny.
“Never mind that, Mrs. Bunny,” said Mr. Bunny, happily donning his brown hat and handing Mrs. Bunny hers. “Our first detecting job! The Case of the Large Amount of Smoke.”
“Hmm,” said Mrs. Bunny, eyeing the brown hat thoughtfully. Then she hopped back inside to exchange it for the white one after all.
THE CASE OF THE LARGE AMOUNT OF SMOKE
“So, Mrs. Bunny,” said Mr. Bunny as they hopped over their thirty-third hill. “Don’t you wish we had taken the car?”
“Yes, if it came with a driver,” muttered Mrs. Bunny under her breath. Indeed, she had very little breath left to mutter with. “Are you sure we are going in the right direction? I do wish you had let me stop and get a map.”
“Nonsense. All we have to do is hop toward the manor house.”
“Yes, but have we been hopping toward it?” panted Mrs. Bunny. “It feels to me like we’re hopping around in circles. I’m sure we’ve been up this hill before.”
“Oh, be quiet, Mrs. Bunny.”
And then Mrs. Bunny, who was hopping ahead of Mr. Bunny, saw a great lump on top of a hill. It looked like someone sitting with a blanket over her head, but this seemed such a ridiculous thing to do at the crest of a hill with a lovely view on a beautiful summer morning that Mrs. Bunny decided she must be wrong.
“Mrs. Bunny,” said Mr. Bunny, “I wish I had a Nerf bat. Do you remember Guess That Lump?”
When the baby Bunnys were small, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny had entertained themselves by letting them hide under blankets and hitting them with the Nerf bat, saying in loud, theatrical tones, “WHAT’S THAT LUMP?” It was endlessly amusing but not apt to have the same effect with strangers, Mrs. Bunny feared.
Nevertheless, Mr. Bunny was willing to give it a try with a poke from a stick in place of the Nerf bat, when suddenly a head popped out and a little girl looked at them blankly.
The Bunnys were used to being looked at blankly. It was seldom a human tried to make eye contact.
“WHAT’S THAT LUMP?” shouted Mr. Bunny anyway, just for the heck of it.
It had a very strange effect. The little girl actually seemed to understand. She gave Mr. Bunny a look of pure terror and went immediately back under the blanket.
Madeline sat quietly waiting for the bunnies to go away. She had been sitting under the blanket all morning. When she had awoken and checked on Uncle Runyon, she’d found him still in his coma. After eating the breakfast Jeeves prepared for her, she had gone outside to try and figure out which things that had taken place the day before had been real and which had been imagined. She had almost de
cided that she herself was not insane, merely mistaken about the foxes, when the bunnies accosted her. Now she had to rethink. Between this and trying to figure out how to find her parents, her brains were becoming terrifically overworked. She poked one eye out from a corner of the blanket. Yes, there were talking bunnies there, all right. The one in the brown fedora was saying, “For all the world, as if she understood what I said!”
“Oh dear, Mr. Bunny, but if she did, you must have frightened her terribly, shouting ‘What’s that lump?’ at her.”
“It must be a coincidence,” said Mr. Bunny. “You know humans never understand Bunny language. Maybe she’s just afraid of rabbits.”
“I think you may be a hallucination,” said Madeline from under the blanket.
“The idea! That we could be a hallucination. If anyone’s a hallucination, it’s you!” said Mr. Bunny.
“Right back at you,” said Madeline through the blanket. She wasn’t usually so rude, but it was okay to be rude to imaginary bunnies.
“Right back at you again!” said Mr. Bunny.
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?” said Mr. Bunny.
Madeline whipped the blanket off and said, “What is the matter with you?”
“That’s a very good question,” said Mrs. Bunny, trying to pat Madeline reassuringly on the ankle. But it only made Madeline scooch rapidly backward until she lost her balance and rolled down the hill.
“I am always asking myself what is the matter with Mr. Bunny,” Mrs. Bunny called after her in a friendly manner.
Madeline thought that maybe if she lay very still it would all go away. Stress, she thought, it’s the stress. She was losing her mind. That was the only possible explanation for the talking rabbits and driving foxes. The thing to do was to calm down. KatyD had taught her self-hypnosis during the lulls at the café in the rainy months when there were never many customers. She had taught Madeline self-hypnosis, Reiki, tae kwon do, and a little Serbo-Croatian, but only the self-hypnosis had stuck. Even though she had never used it before, Madeline remembered what to do. The idea was to think of a place that relaxed you, so Madeline imagined walking through a field on Hornby. She took deep calming breaths. She imagined it in detail. The flowers. The butterflies. The fluffy clouds. She began to feel slightly better.
Mr. and Mrs. Bunny—Detectives Extraordinaire! Page 4
