Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery (8 page)

Soon isn’t good enough.
How
soon? I whimpered again.

“Patience, boy. He’s late at a school meeting. He should be here any time.”

She went back into the kitchen and I checked the clock. Six twenty-five. It was getting dark and Chester was still asleep. Time to swing into action.

Having watched Chester undo the lock on Bunnicula’s cage and having participated in that unfortunate steak episode some days earlier, I knew I would have no problem getting Bunnicula out. I just had to be a little more careful where I positioned my head so that I wouldn’t find myself in the humiliating predicament of getting stuck a second time. My timing was perfect. With Bunnicula swinging peacefully from my teeth, I made my way stealthily toward the dining room as the last rays of sunlight gave way to the dark of night. Once inside the dining room door, Bunnicula awakened in great bewilderment. It is not everyday, after all, that one finds oneself, upon awakening, hanging from the jaws of a fellow creature—even so caring and gentle a creature as myself.

Bunnicula opened his eyes wide and turned his face, as best he could, to me. I jumped up onto the nearest chair and placed the rabbit safely on the table’s edge.

“Okay,” I whispered, “there’s your dinner. Go to it! Get your fill as fast as you can, poor bunny. I’ll stand guard.” I don’t know that Bunnicula fully understood what was going on, but the sight of the vegetables piled high in the center of the table sent him scurrying in their direction. He was
very
hungry!

As luck would have it (and as I should have anticipated), Chester’s sense of timing was as astute as my own. No sooner had Bunnicula reached the edge of the salad bowl than the door swung open and Chester bounded into the room. He surveyed the scene frantically. I was unable to act fast enough. Upon seeing Bunnicula about to enjoy his first bit of nourishment in days, Chester leaped across the table, seemingly without touching floor, chairs, or anything else between himself and our furry friend and landed directly on top of the bunny.

“Oh no, you don’t!” he shrieked. Bunnicula, not sure what to do, jumped high in the air and landed, with a great scattering of greens, smack in the center of the salad bowl. Lettuce and tomatoes and carrots and cucumbers went flying all over the table and onto the floor. Chester flattened his ears, wiggled his rear end, and smiled in anticipation. To cat observers, this is known as the “attack position.”

“Run, Bunnicula!” I shouted. Bunnicula turned in my direction, as if to ask where.

“Anywhere!” I cried. “Just get out of his way!”

Chester sprang.

Bunnicula jumped.

And in the flash of a second, they had changed positions. Chester now found himself flat on his back (owing to the slipperiness of the salad dressing) in the bowl. And Bunnicula, too dazed to even think about food now, hovered quivering on the table.

Chester was having a great deal of difficulty getting back on his feet, but I knew it was only a matter of seconds before he’d attack again. And I knew also that Bunnicula was too petrified to do anything to save himself. So I did the only thing I could: I barked. Very loudly and very rapidly.

The whole family rushed through the doors. Mr. Monroe must have just come home because his coat was still on.

“Oh, no!” cried Mrs. Monroe. “That’s it, Chester. This is Chester’s last stand!”

Chester rolled his eyes heavenward and didn’t even try to move.

“Mom,” said Toby, tugging at his mother’s arm, “look at Bunnicula. How did he get out of his cage? He looks scared.”

“Of course, he’s scared,” Mrs. Monroe said. “We probably forgot to latch his cage and he got out. And I think Chester has been chasing him.”

Toby put his face close to the rabbit. “Mom, doesn’t Bunnicula look kinda sick?”

“We’d better take them all to the vet to see if any damage was done,” she answered.

I started to whimper. No need for
me
to go to the vet.

Mr. Monroe patted my head. “We may as well take Harold along,” he said. “He’s probably due for his shots.”

Mrs. Monroe carefully picked Chester out of the salad bowl and carried him by the scruff of the neck to the kitchen. “I’m going to give Chester a quick bath,” she said to Mr. Monroe. “Why don’t you put together a fresh salad? Toby, you and Peter put Bunnicula back in his cage and then clean up the table.”

I didn’t stick around for an assignment. This was not the time to be in the way.

And besides, I now had a whole evening and night ruined worrying about the next morning’s visit to the vet. This little effort of mine, I thought, has been a disaster in more ways than one.

Looking back on that night, I remember thinking that this whole mess could never be resolved happily. What would become of Bunnicula, my new friend, who was suffering from starvation? And what of Chester, my old friend, who seemed to have flipped his lid and, if you’ll pardon the expression, was in the doghouse with the Monroes? Of far greater concern at that time, of course, was my own future, for on that night all that consumed my thoughts was the fear of the next day’s injections! It all seemed hopeless indeed.

But looking back on the next
day
, I can tell you that happy endings are possible, even in situations as fraught with complications as this one was.

Early the next morning, we all piled into the car, some of us with greater reluctance than others, and trundled off to the vet. And by afternoon, we were on our way to solving our problems.

The vet worked everything out very nicely. He discovered that Bunnicula was suffering from extreme hunger. (
I
could have told him that.) Rather than jar his fragile stomach with solid foods, the doctor decided he should be put on a liquid diet until he got better. So Bunnicula was immediately given some carrot juice, which he drank eagerly. After he finished, he looked over at me with a great grin on his face and winked.

Chester was diagnosed as being emotionally overwrought. It was suggested that he start sessions with a cat psychiatrist to work out what the doctor called a case of sibling rivalry with Bunnicula. I asked Chester later what a sibling was, but he wasn’t speaking to me. So I looked it up. It’s like a brother or sister. And sibling rivalry means you are competing with your brother or sister for attention. I wasn’t sure this was Chester’s problem, but it sure explained a lot about Toby and Pete.

As for me … well, I came out the best. Dr. Wasserman was all set to give me my shots when the nurse came in with my card.

“Wait, doctor, this dog doesn’t need his shots yet. It’s too soon.”

So I got a pat on the head and a doggie-pop instead.

These days, everything is back to normal in the Monroe household—almost. Bunnicula liked his liquid diet so much that the Monroes have kept him on it. And oddly enough, there have been no problems with vegetables mysteriously turning white since. Chester, of course, insists that this proves his theory.

“Obviously, Harold, the liquified vegetables take the place of the vegetable juices, so Bunnicula has no need to go roaming anymore.”

“Then he’s not a vampire,” I said.

“Nonsense. He’s a vampire all right. But he’s a modern vampire. He gets his juices from a blender.”

“Case closed, Sherlock?” I queried.

“Case closed.”

“Oh, Chester …”

“Yes, Harold?”

“What are those two funny marks on your neck?”

Chester jumped and I laughed. “Very funny,” he said as he began to bathe his tail, “very funny.”

The Monroes never knew anything of Chester’s theory. They changed markets and to this day believe they were the victims of a curious vegetable blight.

Bunnicula and I have become good friends. He still doesn’t say anything, but he snuggles up next to me by the fireplace and we take long cozy snoozes together. One night, I sang him a lullaby in the obscure dialect of his homeland, and he slept very peacefully. It was that night that cemented our friendship.

Now—about Chester. I said that everything was back to normal—almost. Naturally, Chester is the “almost.” He has been seeing his psychiatrist, Dr. Verrückt Katz, twice a week for some time now. He takes his therapy
very
seriously.

The other morning, I was trying to get a little sleep, when Chester came over and nudged me in the ribs.

“Harold, do you realize we’ve never really communicated? I mean
really
communicated?”

I opened one eye cautiously.

“And in order to communicate, Harold, you have to really be in touch with yourself. Are you in touch with yourself, Harold? Can you look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I know who I am. I am in touch with the me-ness that is me, and I can reach out to the you-ness that is you’?”

I closed my eye. I’m used to it by now. He talks like that all the time. He no longer reads Edgar Allan Poe at night. And once he concluded that he had been right about Bunnicula, there has been no more talk about vampires.
The Mark of the Vampire
sits, its usefulness obsolete, on its shelf. Right now, he’s reading
Finding Yourself by Screaming a Lot
, and the other night, when I heard the most awful noise coming from the basement, I didn’t even bat an eyelid. I knew it was just Chester “finding himself,” as he calls it. He explains to me that he’s getting in touch with his kittenhood. And I’ve told him that’s fine—just to let me know when he’s going to do it, so I can be elsewhere. I’ve had enough trouble from Chester’s adventures.

So that’s my story. And the story of a mysterious stranger who no longer seems quite so mysterious and who is definitely no longer a stranger. I’ve presented the facts as clearly as I could, and I leave it to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions. I must now bring this narrative to a close, since it is Friday night—Toby’s night to stay up late and read—and I can hear the crinkling of cellophane. I can only hope it covers two chocolate cupcakes with cream filling.

Publication Info

Atheneum Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 1979 by James Howe
Illustrations copyright © 1979 by Alan Daniel
Preface copyright © 2004 by James Howe

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Book design by Anne Scatto / Pixel Press
The text of this book is set in Stemple Garamond.
The illustrations are rendered in pen and ink.
Manufactured in the United States of America

Revised format edition, 2004

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Howe, Deborah.
Bunnicula: a rabbit-tale of mystery / by Deborah and James Howe;
illustrated by Alan Daniel.—1st ed.
p.   cm.
Summary: Though scoffed at by Harold the dog, Chester the cat tries to warn his human family that their foundling baby bunny must be a vampire.
ISBN 0-689-30700-4
[1. Rabbits—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Howe, James, 1946— . II. Daniel, Alan, 1939— . III. Title.
PZ7.H836Bu  1979
[Fic]—dc80  78-11472

ISBN 0-689-86775-1

Version Info:
Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery
(25th Anniversary Edition),
Bunnicula
Book 1 by Deborah and James Howe
1.0 - scanned and proofread 2008-05-10
Never feed chocolate to dogs, it is poisonous to them.