Alice's Farm

by Maryrose Wood

  Crossing would be dangerous, but being a rabbit was dangerous. Everything about rabbits was designed with constant peril in mind: their keen ears and nervous noses; their big eyes, which were placed so far back on the sides of their heads they could practically see behind them; their powerful hind legs for running away—even their talent for making new kits year-round, to replace the ones who had been lost. Life at the bottom of the food chain was no picnic, and only a foolish bunny would pretend otherwise.

  Then again, thought Alice, whose ears and nose were as sharp as any of her kind, and who could bolt like the wind, too—it’s not easy to sneak up on a rabbit.

  “I’ll go.” Alice stretched her back legs, one after another. “I’d like to get a look at the farm. And the farmers. And I wouldn’t mind tasting a radish someday, too.”

  “We all agree,” Violet said, after a moment. “Alice will go.”

  “I’ll go, too,” said little Thistle. “With Alice.”

  Thistle’s small size made him extra vulnerable, even for a kit. But everyone knew how inclined he was to follow his sister around. “Alice’s other tail,” the older kits liked to tease. If he wanted to go, that was his choice.

  Lester stroked his whiskers. “I won’t go with you. I’m slower than I was, and getting slower by the day. But I’ll tell you all I remember about the farmhouse and the yard, and about farmers, too. And their dang dogs.”

  “Thank you,” said Alice. “That will be a great help. Thistle and I will go tomorrow morning, after the breakfast graze.”

  The meeting was over. No other rabbit volunteered, but two rabbits were enough. Enough to find out if there was a dang dog or not, with a fifty-fifty chance of one of them making it back to Burrow with the news.

  It would be nice if both kits made it home, of course. But if not, there were plenty of young kits getting ready to leave the nest, and plenty of new litters on the way. The warren wouldn’t be running out of rabbits any time soon.

  Still, before they left the meeting den, each of the rabbits of Burrow came up to Alice and Thistle. One after another, they touched noses and said,

  “Use your ears. Use your nose.”

  “Use your ears. Use your nose.”

  “Use your ears. Use your nose.”

  It was a cottontail’s way of saying “be careful,” but rabbits are always careful and don’t need to be reminded. What they were really saying was “good luck and farewell, it’s been nice to know you,” in case it turned out that there was a dang dog out there, or a farmer’s trap, or a lean-flanked fox waiting in the shadows, or an owl or hawk swooping down from above—well, you get the idea.

  Alice understood what they meant. So did Thistle. It didn’t bother the two young ’uns, or make them sad, or even particularly afraid. Cottontails aren’t sentimental about all the ways they’re likely to get eaten. That’s just the way life is, for a rabbit.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  First night in a new house.

  You may remember how young Carlsbad Harvey, once a proud city dweller with a collection of expired subway passes to prove it, now a reluctant resident of 11 Prune Street, had taken half the blame for his family’s move upon his own bug-spray-scented, summer-camp-loving self.

  Lots of kids blame themselves for stuff that has nothing to do with them. Often, it’s because the grown-ups on duty won’t spill the beans about the real reasons for a big change. Brad and Sally were better than most in that respect, and they’d done their best to explain, but Carl’s math was still way off.

  Their trip upstate to retrieve Carl and Emmanuel from Camp Kids in the Woods was a factor, true. The landscape was magnificent, home to straight-trunked hemlocks and sugar maple trees that grew there long before Brooklyn had a bridge. Brad and Sally made cartoon googly eyes at each other as they swiped real estate brochures from near the cash register at the diner where the gang stopped for breakfast on the way home.

  But that was only ten percent of it.

  Another ten percent came a few months later, at Thanksgiving, when a supersized New York City street rat scared Sally half to death by crashing into the front wheels of Marie’s stroller. They were on a last-minute excursion to Frank’s Market to get cranberries, which Brad and Sally always forgot to buy in advance. The Thanksgiving Day cranberry run was an annual holiday ritual that usually had an air of comedy about it.

  Not this year. SQUEAK! went the rat, thudding into the wheels so hard it had to stop and shake it off before skittering away. Sally screamed like an actor in a horror movie, and Marie yelled mysterious baby words, which sounded something like “Baahhhmowww!” Bad mouse, maybe?

  Sally quickly regrouped, at least on the outside. She managed to buy the cranberries and get her racing heart and a gleefully bahhhmowwwing Marie back to the apartment, where arriving holiday guests were already kicking off their shoes in the hall. On the inside, something had snapped. By the time appetizers were served, she’d stolen to the bathroom with her phone to quietly plug her email address into a half-dozen websites with names like “Your Country Dream House,” “Back to Nature Real Estate,” “Elite Rural Properties” and so on.

  So the rat was to blame as well. But ten percent for summer camp and ten percent for the rat still left eighty percent of the blame unaccounted for. All of it belonged to the parachute.

  This was no ordinary parachute. It was a golden parachute that had been given as a gift to Brad Harvey by his job, months before the drive to summer camp and the terrifying Thanksgiving of the Rat.

  It was a funny kind of present, since the golden parachute was also a way of saying Brad didn’t have to go to work anymore. That’s how Brad and Sally had explained it to Carl. You’d think an object of that size and so prone to glittering would be tough to keep hidden, but Carl never could manage to find it, even after looking under all the beds and conducting a sneaky search of his parents’ dresser drawers and closets.

  Meanwhile, Brad, who used to get up at dawn, put on a suit, and kiss his sleeping family goodbye with a smooth-shaved chin and skin that smelled like pine, now slept late in the mornings and didn’t shave at all.

  He grew his hair long and tried different kinds of beards. For a while he was a drummer in a band. Then he was a bike mechanic. He became obsessed with beekeeping, even though there was no place to keep bees in the apartment, but he read a stack of books about it and bought himself a real beekeeper’s suit. To Carl it looked like a space suit from the old science fiction movies, the black-and-white ones that predicted that by the far-off year 1995, the Planet Earth would be a garbage dump and humans would live on Mars.

  Brad and Sally used to watch TV in the late evenings after Carl went to bed. Once the golden parachute arrived, they spent their nights talking. Voices were kept low, but phrases like “the money won’t last forever” and “just pick something!” and “but what about school?” would find their way to Carl’s half-asleep, half-awake ears.

  The next thing that happened was that Brad started spending a lot of time on his computer.

  “Are you looking for a new job?” Carl asked one night after dinner, when he saw his dad gazing intently at the laptop, writing down phone numbers.

  “More than a job, champ. A new life. One that means something. Check this out.”

  There it was, in rows of tiny photographs scrolling across the screen. A big red house tucked into a grassy slope, with white trim around the windows and no other houses in sight. It had a front porch with a swing seat and a barn out back.

  Inside the house were way more rooms than Carl was used to. Even in the bedrooms, the windows looked out at trees, not buildings.

  “You like it?” His dad had smiled expectantly, like the answer really had to be yes.

  “It’s nice,” Carl admitted, never dreaming he’d be waking up in that house before long.

  * * *

  Carl took a cautious spoonful of the oatmeal his mother had glopped into his bowl from a big pot on the stove. Without even asking, she’d spr
inkled it with chopped-up fruit that had already given the best of itself to the dehydrator.

  Taste-wise it was no Fruity Pebbles, and the oatmeal was so thick his spoon just might be able to stand up on its own. Carl proceeded to investigate.

  “Did you sleep okay, honey?”

  “I guess.” He always found it odd that if you couldn’t remember how you slept, it meant you slept well. For a first night in a new house, it hadn’t been bad. Everything from his room in Brooklyn had survived the trip in the mover’s truck: his bed with the deep drawers underneath and the race-car comforter on top, the blue-painted dresser for his clothes, the shelves for his books and bins of small toys.

  Carl had been most concerned about Big Robot, but the big guy seemed okay. The toy blinked and made noise when it had fresh batteries in it and stood there keeping an eye on things when it didn’t, which was most of the time. Still, the robot was a friendly presence, an old friend who still meant a lot to Carl. When Grandma and Grandpa Harvey had sent it as a gift, years earlier, boy and robot were the exact same height. Now Big Robot barely came up to Carl’s waist.

  “It’s nice to see you up so early,” Sally said, chopping away at something on the counter. “This is my favorite time of day.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Carl groused. “All those windows! It was like someone turned on the lights.”

  Brad and Sally had unpacked Carl’s room first, so he’d feel “right at home,” as his dad had said, and he wasn’t even kidding. But Carl’s new room was way bigger than his old room. It made his bed seemed tiny, like a little kid’s bed. Big Robot looked small and lost, like a dumb old toy.

  And that sun! His room in Brooklyn had one window that didn’t get any sun until the afternoon because the apartment building next door was in the way. His new room had windows on three sides and the sunbeams poured right in. The light had woken him up gently but firmly. “If I’ve got to be up, then so do you, my fine young fellow!” That’s what it felt like the sun was saying, anyway.

  He could have stayed in bed on principle, but the breakfast smells rising from the kitchen were hard to ignore. He’d gotten dressed and headed downstairs. He fully intended to still be crabby about moving, but now he was curious, too. And hungry. He’d been dreaming about pancakes, but a Frosted Toasty-Tart would have done just fine.

  Instead, oatmeal with rubber fruit. Carl decided to keep an open mind. He took another taste. The fruit was chewy, dark and sweet. Could it be prunes? That would be an awful joke, if so.

  “Isn’t it nice to hear the birds?” his mom said, still at the stove. From the smell of things, she’d moved on to making applesauce. No surprise there. Marie was pretty much made of applesauce. The baby was already up, buckled into her high chair, happily kicking her feet in mismatched socks. Foxy was curled up in her new dog bed, which Carl had picked out for her before the move. It looked like a miniature fancy sofa, with throw pillows and everything.

  “Honey, did you hear what I said about the birds?”

  “What birds?” Carl’s concentration was on the spoon. He’d shored it up by heaping oatmeal around the base and adding a foundation of prune bits, but it still tipped to one side.

  “The birds outside. Listen.”

  He listened.

  There were no car engines spluttering, no garbage trucks rumbling, no faint sounds of the TV coming from the apartment next door.

  But there were birds, lots of them, singing prettily in all different ways, high and low, fast and slow. It was nothing like the city-bird sound of pigeons cooing and clumsily flapping their wings. Pigeon wings never seemed to work right anyway. If Carl ever grew wings, he’d make sure he learned how to operate them, that’s for sure.

  “Wait,” he said, staring at the spoon, nudging it right, then left, then right again. “Does this mean we’re farmers now? Are we going to have cows and stuff?”

  Sally brought a bowl of fresh applesauce to Marie and pulled up a chair for herself next to the high chair.

  “Farmer can mean a lot of different things,” she said.

  “I just want to know if I’m going to have to milk a cow.”

  “Moooo!” Marie was learning the animal noises. She banged her plastic spoon on her tray and the applesauce splattered all over. “Moooo! Da da!”

  Brad strode into the kitchen. He wore a checked shirt and jeans and boots, and he looked as happy as Carl had ever seen him.

  “Good morning, all! What a beautiful family! What a beautiful day!” The man was practically singing.

  Carl let the spoon fall. “Dad, are we farmers now?”

  “We sure are.” He grabbed a corner of Marie’s bib and wiped the goo off her face. “Gross!” he said cheerfully, and kissed the baby’s head.

  “Mooo!” she yelled. “Moo moo, faam!”

  He poured coffee for himself and straddled a chair at the table. “We don’t have a cow yet, Marie, but who knows? Maybe someday we will.”

  “Don’t promise things, Brad,” Sally warned, but her eyes were smiling.

  “I’m talking one cow, not a thundering herd. Although a flock of goats might be fun. Goat milk and goat cheese, yum. And chickens! Hey, champ, that oatmeal smells good! What a great cook your mom is.”

  “I like it when we have pancakes,” Carl replied philosophically. “What other kinds of animals are we getting? I don’t want horses,” he added. He’d seen police officers riding horses in the park. Those animals were large.

  Brad sat back in his chair. “We’ll figure it out soon enough.”

  “When?”

  “Let’s circle back on that one, champ.” Circle back meant his dad didn’t know the answer. It was also a joke about his former job that Carl didn’t get, but when his dad said “circle back,” his mother usually chuckled. Not today, though. She was looking, not tense exactly, or unhappy, but like her brain was full of thoughts.

  Brad poured sugar into his coffee and drank it with closed eyes, like it was the best thing he’d ever had in his life. “Man, oh man. Everything tastes better in the country. Hey, Carlsbad, are you gonna eat that oatmeal, or play with it, or what?”

  Carl brought one small spoonful to his mouth and made a tragic face. Brad waited until Sally’s back was turned and poured a ton of sugar right into the bowl. Then he winked, which looked so weird it made Carl laugh.

  “Eat up, champ. You’ll need the energy. We’ve got a lot of work to do today. Farm work!” He said it like he was announcing a trip to the circus.

  Carl considered the implications. “Are there, whatchamacallits? Plants?”

  “You mean crops. There will be, once we plant some.”

  “Will I get to ride a tractor?”

  “Maybe.”

  He grew quiet, imagining it. Riding in a tractor would be all right. He just wished Emmanuel and his other friends from Brooklyn would be around to see it.

  Foxy stirred in her dog bed.

  “A tractor, honestly, Brad. Hey, did anyone take the dog out?” Sally asked.

  “Carl can do it.” Brad turned to him. “Take the dog out, champ.”

  “Do I still have to pick up her poop?”

  “Poopy!” Marie yelled, and squealed until she turned red.

  “Yes, you have to pick it up,” Sally said.

  “No,” Brad said at the same time. “Farmers love to step in poop. In fact, you don’t even have to keep her on the leash. Let Foxy loose! She’s a country dog now.”

  Carl frowned. “What if she runs away?”

  “Dogs are smart. She knows where her food bowl is.”

  “She’s not that smart.” There was a worried tone in Sally’s voice. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the dog loose, Brad. It’s a strange place, after all…”

  “Poop! Poop!” Marie yelled.

  Precisely two seconds later it became clear to everyone present that Marie wasn’t kidding. Brad leapt up to handle the diaper change. Sally finally started laughing.

  “C’mere, Foxy,” Carl call
ed, pushing back his chair. “C’mon, girl! Let’s go outside.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Off the leash, at last.

  Alice and Thistle finished their breakfast right around the same time Carl Harvey started his. They opted for a quick graze of clover and wild bluegrass, as they didn’t want their bellies overfull for the adventure that lay ahead.

  The kits were almost too jumpy to eat. Their nervous systems were on high alert in the usual rabbit way, with a heaping spoonful of adventure mixed in. What they felt was neither fear nor the lack of fear, but a useful kind of excitement. It would keep their ears sharp and their legs quick.

  As promised, Lester escorted the two young ’uns to the meadow’s edge. They stood together on a flat granite outcropping behind a thicket of laurel bushes. The cottontails called it Split Rock. It was a good landmark and a good hiding place, too.

  “Now, listen with both ears, you two,” he began. “Cross the meadow separately, it’ll draw less attention. Alice, you take the far side, by the hedgerow. You, little one—Thorn? Thistle, that’s right—go down the middle. There’s less cover, but it’s the shortest way back to the trees if you have to bolt.”

  That Lester couldn’t recall Thistle’s name didn’t offend the young kit. Cottontails can’t afford to be fussy about names, given how many baby rabbits are born, season after season, year after year, most of them named after familiar plants. It would take a whole rabbit encyclopedia to keep count of all the Ragweeds and Clovers and Bluebells and Daisies hopping about the valley between the hills. Alice was short for alyssum, a pretty little plant with white flowers that country folk call Sweet Alice, because of how sweet those flowers smell.

  Even Lester was named after a plant. He’d chosen the name himself. It was a type of heirloom tomato called “Lester’s Perfected,” listed in The Field and Garden Vegetables of America, 2nd edition, a guide whose yellowed pages were in the box whose contents had long ago served as a feast for the very young, very curious rabbit he’d once been. The young ’un had liked the sound of “Lester’s Perfected” a great deal, almost as much as he liked the mushroomy taste of the old pages. He’d gone by the name Lester ever since. (Remarkably, The Field and Garden Vegetables of America, 2nd edition had listed thirteen different kinds of Swiss chard, and this had made a big impression on Lester as well.)