Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Lockdown made them stir crazy – at least, crazier than usual…
My rabbit Billie, an intelligent sort of bunny (though I must always remember the other rabbit I’m using as a reference point) has been finding lots of new games to keep herself amused during all our recent lockdowns. Of course, I use the words “our lockdowns” advisedly – Billie and her not so bright partnerrabbit Ted have always been in lockdown, living as they do, in a cage.
I think Billie may secretly be amused we’ve been forced to join them in captivity, and just as I observe them for column purposes, she observes me for annoyance purposes ( my annoyance) – that’s Game One – staring at the fat bloke. Long after Ted’s failed to realise I’m in the room, Billie’s wide unblinking eyes are always directly on me, like one of those spooky paintings that appear to follow you round the room. She also seems to know it makes me uneasy – if ever I appear to relax for a moment, she immediately stamps a giant back foot, giving off a sound like a rifle shot, making me jump and putting me into brief panic mode.
Now there’s a novel twist… I’m being hunted by a rabbit, seemingly having slipped 50 places down the food chain.*
Game Two, predictably, involves Ted, though he doesn’t know he’s participating. Of course he doesn’t. Having defeated me, clearly the household’s bottom-feeder, Billie next turns her attention on her nearest and dearest – well, nearest anyway – Ted.
The game’s name appears to be Flip the Rabbit. In a bizarre new twist in the pair’s relationship, Billie has realised she doesn’t always need to back-kick Ted in the head to achieve satisfying results, and instead can do so by barely touching him. I know I’m not imagining this because I’ve seen her do it too many times for it to be by chance. Billie waits quietly as Ted drifts into his normal state of blissful unawareness, fast asleep, nose on his front paws and eyes tight shut. Then she gracefully runs the length of the cage and leaps over him like a racehorse over a fence but – and here’s the twist – she always, without fail, “accidentally” clips his midriff on the way over.
While this isn’t enough to wake Ted (not much is) it does have the rather alarming effect of sending him into a 180 degree spin, rolling him straight over onto his back and leaving him lying with four feet in the air. When my wife Lorraine first spotted him in this position, she assumed he was dead. As you would, with Ted. I assured her that Billie had done it but the “it” she’d done wasn’t murder – it was a carefully executed mickeytake. One look at Billie’s self-satisfied face as she observes her hapless friend snoring on his back and I know I’m right. Then she spots me of course, and it’s Game One on.
* By the way, did you know that contrary to what most of us believe, humans are not the top of the food chain, but about halfway down, the same position as a cockroach? Now, there’s a nice thought…
She can send him into a spin, lying on his back, feet in the air