Oddfellow's Orphanage (10 page)

Delia came to an enormous old tree. Its roots were dotted with orangey-red mushrooms, and the ground beneath it was soft with moss and fallen leaves. She stretched out onto the ground and spread her arms, fluttering them through the leaves the way children do in the snow. Delia closed her eyes and swooshed her arms. As she brought them back down, her hand brushed something—something that felt nothing like a leaf or an acorn.

Delia opened her eyes and looked over. Staring back at her were two dark, shiny eyes. A small brown rabbit sat right next to her hand, half buried in leaves. Delia slowly reached toward the little creature. It scampered through the leaves beside her arm and clambered up onto her chest. Delia smiled, looking at the rabbit’s twitching nose. As her eyes moved upward, she noticed something very curious: a pair of tiny, perfect horns growing neatly between his smooth brown ears. Suddenly, the unusual rabbit turned its head sharply and froze.

Ava and Daniel walked up laughing, out of breath from an
acorn-throwing war, and Tom followed close behind. They saw Delia and the little rabbit and fell silent.

“Oh my … goodness,” Ava whispered, her eyes wide.

“What is it?” Tom whispered, closing his book and stepping closer.

Delia sat up and gently placed the rabbit in her lap. She shrugged as if to say, “Who in the world knows what this little thing is?”

Tom, Ava, and Daniel sat, their legs crackling into the soft bed of leaves.

The rabbit peered up from Delia’s skirts, blinking its bright eyes and nervously flicking its back legs.

“Should we take it to Professor Silas?” Daniel asked, lightly petting its head. It seemed to like this. The rabbit scratched a back foot against its horns.

Delia opened her notebook and began to draw the strange little creature.

“Oh, wait! I think I might know what it is,” Ava said, opening her satchel. She took out the book Professor Silas had given them earlier that day. Biting her lip, she thumbed through the pages. “Himalayan Blue Monkey … no … Horse Fly (Rocking) … no. Wait! Yes! Here it is.” Ava looked at the illustration in the book, and then at the rabbit on Delia’s lap. “Hmmm …,” she said, frowning a little.

“So, what
is
it?” Tom asked.

“Well, I think this is it, but according to the book it’s supposed to be bigger.” Ava eyed the little rabbit. “Much,
much
bigger.” She placed the open book on the ground for the others to see.

“The Great Horned Rabbit is very rare. It can grow to reach ten feet in length,” Ava read aloud.

Delia wrote something in her notebook, then held it out.

“A baby?” Tom asked.

Delia gestured to the illustration in Ava’s book.

“Oh! A baby horned rabbit! I bet you’re right!” said Tom.

“Should we take it back to school?” Ava asked Delia. She scooped up the little horned rabbit and held it to her face. It licked her nose with its tiny pink tongue. Ava laughed.

Startled, the rabbit wriggled from her hands. It dove into the leaves and darted away. The children watched it vanish into the forest.

The four stood up.

“Professor Silas will never believe we found a Great Horned Rabbit all by ourselves,” Daniel said, disappointedly brushing leaves from his trousers.

“Maybe nobody will ever know about him,” said Ava, half frowning.

Delia looked back into the trees where the baby rabbit had vanished, and then wrote something in her notebook.

Smiling, she held up the page.

The children smiled at each other, then headed back to the school, leaves crackling beneath their feet.

A TRIP TO THE CIRCUS

E
ACH
year in the autumn, everyone at Oddfellow’s Orphanage went to the circus.

“It’s the bears’ going-away party,” Ava explained to Delia as the bear-drawn carriages wound down the road on the way to the circus.

Delia frowned. She scribbled a note in her notebook.

“Oh, don’t look so sad!” Ava said. “They’re not going away for good! They just go to sleep at this time of year, and stay asleep till spring comes. Our bears hibernate the same as wild bears.”

At this, Delia’s face softened. She wrote another note.

The carriage jerked to a stop.

Ava smiled and said, “No,
they
take
us
.”

Everyone—grown-ups, orphans, and the bear family—piled out of the carriages as the sun began to set. They gathered in a group outside a ring of trees. The headmaster gave each of the children a small red ticket and a little pocket money.

“Stay together in small groups, if you please,” Headmaster Bluebeard instructed. “And when the show is over and done, everyone meet back here. Now, off you go—enjoy the circus!”

With Hank leading the bears, they made their way through the trees toward an enormous tent. It had faded red and white stripes and was capped with flags that fluttered in the chilly air. They walked around the giant tent and were greeted with an eyeful of curious sights.

Girls scarcely bigger than Delia and Ava wove their bodies into pretzel shapes, while elephants waved feathered headdresses.
A man as tall as a giraffe bent down to talk to a man shorter than Delia. Pretty ladies in jewel-colored robes looked into handheld mirrors and put on scarlet lipstick, while men in white makeup fed apples and carrots to satin-skinned horses.