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Upon a time there lived a small rabbit called Hopper. He lived in a
hollowed out tree-stump with his good mother and father. His mother went out
every morning to bring her family carrots to eat, and his father was an
accountant for the rich gopher who lived under the fine green lawn just
across the brook. One day Hopper was outside playing among the dandelions,
leaping and bounding to and fro on his furry little feet, when a great cloud
of dust appeared on the horizon. Hopper was a very curious rabbit, and not at
all timid like some of his playmates, who were at times timorous creatures.
Hopper wasn't anything if not adventurous, and when he saw that big cloud of
reddish-orange dust looming just beyond the dark forest, he knew he had to
investigate. His mother and father had warned him never to venture past the
big round rock near the edge of the forest, but, being an inquisitive little
bunny, Hopper had, on many occasions, gone as far as the third tree, and once
he even ate a bit of grass growing at the foot of the fourth.
This time, he thought to himself, I
shall go all the way through and find what's there on the other side of the
dark forest, for it can't be as dangerous as mother and father have said. And
so, leaving his lush field of dandelions, and hopping past his home, he came
to the round white rock that marked the edge of the forest, where he
stopped for a moment.
"Mother would not like it one
bit if I were to go off without telling her and she were to come home and see
that I'm not playing among the dandelions or frolicking in the brook or in my
room eating carrots and playing with my new chess set, and father will
certainly punish me if I get back after dinner," said Hopper to himself
thoughtfully, "but I shall certainly be home before dinner, for there
cannot be more than 100 trees in this forest," (For Hopper fancied 100
to be a handsome big number and quite suitable for the purpose of counting
blades of grass, grains of sand, stars and other numerous things) "And
as I have already easily ventured as far as the fourth tree in a matter of
minutes, it will take no longer than fifty minutes to reach the end of the
wood, and no more than fifty to come back, which leaves me nearly an hour to
look as I may at what I find thither and allows me to arrive back home still
well before dinner."
Much pleased with his reasoning and
mathematical acuity, Hopper thus set off at a brisk pace, quickly penetrating
beyond the known reaches of the wood into the unknown reaches of the wood,
which bore a striking resemblance to the known reaches, but were of far
greater number. As he hopped, he counted the trees that passed him on either
side, and when he got to fifty, he decided that, being halfway through, it
would be a good place to sit and rest for a while. But before his furry
bottom even touched the ground, Hopper heard a sound from just the direction
in which he himself had been heading. Suddenly much afraid, and much
regretting his bravado in setting off so hastily into the dark forest, Hopper
moved behind a shrub and crouched down, making himself very small and wishing
for his mother to be there in order to comfort him. His fears of monsters
and snakes were relieved when he saw, bounding through the forest, a rabbit
just like himself, smiling and humming a merry tune as he went. Hopper,
delighted beyond conception by the arrival of this jovial creature, stepped
from the shrub and called an enthusiastic "Hello!" to the passing
stranger, who stopped and turned to him.
"Why hello there, little
fellow, what brings you to these woods?" said the stranger.
"I'm a very curious little
bunny and I desire to know what lies beyond these woods," said Hopper,
admiring the stranger's marvelous long whiskers.
"Nothing lies beyond
them," said the stranger "they go on forever."
"But that's impossible!"
cried Hopper. "I know for a fact that just where we stand is halfway
between my side of the woods and the far side. I made the calculations and I
shall go there and come back in time for supper."
"I made calculations as
well," said the stranger, "I was to be back in my den sipping
carrot tea and reading a book by dusk, but I've been hopping through this
forest for three whole days now with neither tea to sip nor a book to read.
The first tune I was whistling wore out after the first day, so I chose
another for the second day, and the one you must have heard me whistling just
now is the third. I have made up my mind that because I know only three more
tunes I will save them for the journey home and turn back on the
morrow."
"I know many tunes I could
teach you to whistle!" said Hopper, and whistled one to demonstrate,
"but I don't think you'll be needing them because if you keep going on
your path you will come out on my side of the woods in just under an hour.
You will find a delightful little brook and a field of dandelions and a
little hollow stump where I live with my good mother and father!"
"Keep your tunes for yourself.
You'll need them if you really mean to find your way to the end of this
forest, for, as I've already mentioned, it doesn't end, and as for me, my
calculations do not allow for dawdling and talking with passers by, as
pleasant as the conversation might be, so I shall be on my way. Good day to
you, my dear rabbit."
"And good day to you,"
said Hopper, and continued on his way.
And so he went for a long while, the
dark forest getting rather darker all the while as the trees thickened around
him. The way by which he hopped became obscured by twigs and brush, forcing
him to slow his pace, and even stop entirely when he came upon a brier so
thick he wouldn't have been able to make his more than three yards a day,
and only that if he had had the forethought to bring a machete on this
adventure. He was hopping hither and thither along front of the thicket
searching for a path through to the other side, and was on the point of
giving up hope and returning home, when a little path of trodden grass caught
his eye.
Perhaps this is the path that
cheerful rabbit with the whiskers took in coming the other way, thought
Hopper, and perhaps it will lead the way to the far side of this unfortunate
obstacle. And sure enough, as Hopper had hoped, the trail lead off to the
side a little way before it turned sharply and plunged into a narrow passage
through the thorns. It was dark in the thicket, and Hopper squinted into
the blackness as he went, doing all he could to keep from tearing his
delicate skin on the twisted thorns that lined the edge of the way, and even
so gained a painful scratch oh his ear when it caught on a nastily barbed
vine just above his head. "Gosh!" he squeaked aloud. "Another
mishap like that and I'll very soon tire of this adventure!"
He soon came to a small clearing in
the thicket which allowed him enough room to sit and catch his breath. He was
unused to crawling through such dark and dangerous places and found himself
already quite exhausted. Before he knew it, his furry little eyelids had
fluttered shut, and he was sound asleep. Night was falling in the dark forest
around him. Hopper dreamed of a joyous romp along the banks of his familiar
brook with the other little rabbits who were his friends, and when he awoke
in the pitch darkness, he missed them sorely and was very afraid, for the
sounds and calls that one often hears in a forest at night are just those
ones that at which a small rabbit has good reason to tremble. And so
Hopper curled more tightly into a little ball, and began to cry, for his torn
ear also pained him greatly. Too morbidly frightened to make a sound, he
sobbed silently, wishing that his mother and father would come find him and
take him back to his cosy room in the hollow stump in the field of dandelions
by the bubbling brook. Just as he wished this, he heard the faint rustling of
something moving towards him through the bramble. Very much terrified, he
pressed himself back into the thorns, hoping that whatever hungry monster
might be approaching would pass by without noticing his small fluffy body and
therefore not make a delightful meal of his tender flesh. And then he heard a
whistle. It was a steady note, at first, then broke into some foreign tune
that Hopper had never heard. It must, thought the trembling bunny, much
relieved, be that stranger with the very long whiskers who scared me in near
the same way before, and who has finished his journey through to my side of
the forest and is now making his way back.
And sure enough, in several moments,
the other rabbit made his way to where Hopper was sitting and spoke.
"Is that you hiding in the
brambles there, Hopper?" he asked, "your mother and father are very
worried about you."
"Oh thank goodness it's
you," cried Hopper.
"Not too loud," cautioned
the stranger, "there are owls and snakes in this forest who might hear
your young voice and come looking for the tasty little morsel that produced
it. Just as you said I would, I came through to the end of the wood soon
after we parted and met your mother and father, who were out calling for you,
very concerned, and when I told them that I had just seen you, they begged me
return to the forest and bring you back to them."
"Oh, my poor mother and
father!" said Hopper, mindful to keep his voice down.
"Because I was very hungry, I
ate some dinner with them, sitting at your place in a chair that was much too
small for me, and afterwards, I turned myself round and came right back here
to find you, and find you I have, so now let us make haste back to that
pleasant field of dandelions where you and your parents make your
home."
"But surely the way back is
very dangerous," said Hopper, "and full of ravenous sharp-toothed
creatures who would eat the both of us in one bite and still be hungry for
the cheese course."
"There's nothing to fear. I saw
so many hungry wolves coming here that there can be none left to prowl the
journey back."
"I suppose you must be in the
right, but I still can't help feeling rather afraid, and I would like to know
your name if we're going to be hopping together through the darkness, so that
if I lose my way I should know what to whisper."
"I am called Buttercup,"
said Buttercup.
"Very well, Buttercup,"
said Hopper, still trembling.
The two rabbits made their way back
through the narrow passage in the brambles, Buttercup ahead, whistling a
merry tune, and Hopper following closely behind. They soon emerged from the
thicket into the shadowy moonlight, and, moving more quickly, as bunnies are
wont to do in dark forests at night, made their way through the trees and
undergrowth back in the direction of Hopper's home. Hopper stayed close to
his companion, for his long ears were filled with those menacing sounds of
the night, which seemed to grow ever nearer on all sides and spoke eloquently
of razor-sharp beaks and slavering jaws.
"Why do you whistle?"
whispered Hopper. "Won't the noise draw out whatever is lurking behind
yonder tree?"
"I always whistle when I'm in a
dark forest, and I have never before been eaten mid-whistle," replied
Buttercup, who was promptly swept away in the talons of a hungry bird.
Oh dear! thought Hopper, what have I
done? Surely if I hadn't interrupted his tune, that would not have happened!
What an awful way to repay his kindness in coming back to rescue me from such
despair as I was in! But what shall I do now? I'm worse off than when I was
hiding among the thorns, for there I was at least obscured, while any place
here I find to hide might very well be already occupied by a snake waiting
for some small furry animal like me to wander into its venomous jaws. I am
also afraid that I am completely lost; these trees all look the same by
night.
And so, as Hopper stood musing along
those and similar lines, he felt a quick rush of wind and the unpleasant
sensation of talons piercing the loose skin of his back. Being thus seized
and swept into the air, Hopper's line of reasoning was disrupted. Very much
displeased by such a disruption, he twisted round and put his teeth into the
nearest bit of birdflesh he could find. His avian captor, being similarly
interrupted in whatever train of thought she was pursuing and presumably
similarly aggrieved, reached down to put a stop to Hopper's nonsense with her
razor-sharp beak, and, being thus distracted, promptly flew head-first into a
tree and fell to the ground stone dead. Hopper, though much bruised,
punctured and fractured by the ordeal, remained quite alive, and, after a
brief and valiant effort to make some inventory of this most recent
ordeal, passed out from pain, exhaustion and terror.
He slept until late morning, when
the sun shone through the trees above and awoke him. He found, upon
awakening, that by some stroke of luck he and his taloned companion had
fallen on a sort of rocky outcropping, more or less inaccessible to the
ravenings of the night. For this reason he was as yet undigested, but the joy
of this initial finding was soon mitigated by an extraordinary and diverse
pain and, owing to the large mass of dead feathers and flesh on top of
him, a complete inability to move about. As the day wore on, a deep and
terrible hunger joined this already lengthy list of grievances.
The rock from which he was unable to
move soon began to grow unpleasantly warm from the sun.
When the sun ascends to its acme,
thought Hopper, this rock will become unbearably hot, and I will surely, even
shaded from above by these feathers, be thoroughly baked from below before
the cool of the evening can relieve me.
After having laboriously violated
the most basic of lagomorphic dietary codes, and thereby freed himself from
his avian encumbrance and eased his hunger, Hopper realized that, having been
utterly lost from the outset of his expedition, he was now nearly
irredeemably so. That short flight had left him entirely disoriented, and any
direction might lead home just as well as any other. Considering that
there are four cardinal directions and four additional lesser directions,
which each must count as a half of a cardinal one, Hopper decided that to try
them all would take, on average, three more days, and possibly as many as
six, not including at least a day to rest and let his wounds ease. As
spending that amount of time wandering through the hazardous woods would be
impracticable, Hopper decided that the best course of action would be to
attempt to achieve the summit of the rock face looming above, and from there
have greater vantage in determining his course homeward.
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