Bunnies
Bunnies
Justin Cawthorne
Copyright 2009 Justin Cawthorne
for Anya Jenkins
Bunnies
by Justin Cawthorne
Katarina walked down the road to Brendan's house, holding the box carefully in front of her. It was starting to get heavy, but she didn't mind. She loved being out at this time of year, she loved the way the air was bitter and full of mischief. It would be getting dark soon and she loved that too. The change was always good: from light to dark, from warm to cold, from living to dead.
Inside the box was a gift for Brendan. It was the first gift she had ever given him, so she hoped it would be a surprise. She was almost certain it would be.
Brendan was her friend. He was one of the first people she had met when she moved to this town, and they had been friends ever since. She was used to living in new towns and meeting new people. Sometimes they liked her and sometimes they didn't, but Brendan was the first person at school who had said hello to her: she had liked him for that and always would.
On that first day Katarina had been asked by their teacher, Mrs White, to stand up at the front and tell the other children a little bit about herself.
"But why?" she had asked.
"Because everyone wants to know about you," Mrs White had lied to her. "Tell us about where you lived before. What's your new house like? What sort of things do you do when you're at home?"
Katarina was used to this as well: every time she started at a new school the teacher made her talk about herself. She knew that no one really wanted to hear about where she lived before, or what her house was like, or what she did at home. She didn't like talking about herself either, so she told everyone about her bunnies instead.
She bought a new bunny every time she had to move to a new town. It was supposed to be a special reward, but she knew it was really her mother's way of saying sorry for taking her away from all her old friends. None of that mattered to Katarina because she wasn't worried about friends, not people friends in any case; her bunnies were her best friends and now she had four of them. The newest one was Grendel and the other three were called Bugs, Fluff and Toto.
"Most of my bunnies like each other," she had told everyone, "except for Fluff. The others don't like him much because he's not very clever."
"And how do you know that Katarina?" Mrs White had asked her.
"Because that's what they told me," she had answered. "They say Fluff is backwards."
The other children had laughed, not loudly but behind their hands. It didn't matter, Katarina could still hear them.
"Katarina, rabbits can't talk," Mrs White had told her.
"They're not rabbits, they're bunnies, and they don't talk to everyone, only to me."
Then Mrs White had stood up. "It's not good to lie about things, Katarina, you'd better go back to your desk now."
As she walked back someone did an impression of Bugs Bunny: "Ehhhh, what's up, doc?" The whole class laughed, even Brendan. When Katarina sat down she could see that Mrs White was smiling as well, even though she told everyone: "That's enough now, time to open your books..."
Later, her mother had asked her about her first day at school and if everyone had been nice to her. Katarina told her about Brendan saying hello but said nothing about everyone laughing at her. Every time she started a new school her mother asked her the same question, but Katarina always lied now. One time she had talked about a girl who had been mean to her and, the next morning, her mother had come to school with her and told the teacher. Katarina hadn't even wanted the girl to get into trouble, she'd only talked about it because she didn't have anything else interesting to tell her mother. After that the girl had been even meaner to her, so Katarina didn't tell her mother about those things anymore.
It didn't really bother her in any case. After she had been at Brendan's school for almost a week some of the other children had gathered around and started calling her names. They danced in a ring and looked like fairies - except fairies didn't usually look as stupid. Katarina would have waited until they got bored, but Brendan saw what was happening and told them all to stop. After that they started shouting at him instead, but they'd left her alone. For a while.
The box was starting to get too heavy and she still had three blocks to go before she reached Brendan's house. She stopped by a fence and rested the box on top of it for a minute. The box was wrapped in paper with dragons and rainbows on it; she didn't know if Brendan liked dragons and rainbows, but if it wasn't wrapped up then it wouldn't be a gift.
Brendan had brought her a gift for her birthday and he had wrapped it up in paper with robots on it. Inside had been a toy bunny. She didn't like it as much as her real bunnies - for one thing it didn't talk - but she had given him a kiss anyway to say thank you. She had seen her mother kissing the men who brought her things, so it seemed like the right thing to do. It didn't mean she wanted to get married to him or anything. Later on she had seen some of the other children asking him about it, maybe they thought it made him special.
She picked the box up and started walking again. She had been carrying things all day: this morning she had carried Grendel, her newest bunny, to school. It wasn't actually school, it was the Easter holidays so there wasn't any school. Instead she had to go to Holiday Camp - it was the same place as school, but they gave it a different name so they could pretend it was more fun. She had to go because even though it was the Easter holidays her mother still had to go to work. It wasn't really so bad. This morning they were allowed to bring in anything they wanted from home so they could paint a picture of it. Katarina had brought in Grendel, her favourite bunny. She knew she wasn't supposed to have favourites, but Grendel was the one that talked to her the most.
Brendan was also at Holiday Camp; he had two parents but they both worked.
"Is that one of your bunnies?" he had asked.
"Of course it is," she had told him. "His name is Grendel. He's the one I got when I moved here."
Brendan looked at Grendel for a long time. Grendel looked back at him, then got bored and started eating instead. "Does he talk?" Brendan asked.
"Yes, he talks all the time."
Brendan stared at Grendel again. Grendel carried on eating. Finally Brendan said: "I wish he would talk to me..."
"He was talking to you," Katarina told him. "He was wondering what you were looking at. When you didn't say anything back he got bored."
Then a voice from behind them said: "He also said you want to kiss her again, because you liked it the first time." Brendan turned round and his face went red when he saw that it was Anna. She was supposed to be one of Brendan's friends except that she wasn't very nice to him most of the time. Katarina knew Brendan liked Anna, sometimes she could see the two of them talking together in the playground.
"No I didn't!" Brendan shouted and quickly went back to his table. After that Anna started saying something else to her, so Katarina just turned away and started to get her paper and paints ready instead.
She was only a block away from Brendan's house now but her arms were really starting to ache. She walked over to a bench and sat down, keeping the box on her lap to make sure it didn't fall off. Across the road she could see a girl riding around on her bike. After a moment she realised it was Anna.
Anna saw her and cycled over, stopping her bike by the side of the pavement. She just stared. Katarina had nothing to say to Anna so she just stared back. Then Anna started chanting "Crazy Kat! Crazy Kat!" and started riding away. She looked back, still chanting, to make sure Katarina was still watching her, which she was. Katarina was also looking at the parked car which Anna was about to ride her bike into. A second later she hit it, her head made a big crack in the windscreen and something on
her bike cut her leg and made it bleed. Anna was quiet after that.
Katarina picked up the box and carried on walking, leaving Anna in the road. It wasn't the first time she had been to Brendan's house, sometimes she went there for tea because their mothers worked together, so she knew exactly where to go. Brendan also knew where her house was; she had seen him there earlier. He had been riding away on his bike just when she got home, but he hadn't seen her.
She didn't know why he had come to see her until later. Before they left Holiday Camp that afternoon he had come up to her in the playground and given her something. It was a present, all wrapped up in Easter paper, but he had pretended as if he didn't want to give it to her. She had given Brendan a kiss to say thank you and then gone to the park with Grendel to open it. It was a picture book of bunnies; none of them looked as clever as hers, except for Fluff of course, but she liked it all the same.
After she finished the book she had gone home. She went to see her bunnies first of all, as she always did, and knew straight away that Brendan had also been there to see her bunnies; they told her about it, and what he had done. Then she put Grendel back in with the others and he had told her exactly what to do next.
She walked up the path to Brendan's house and rang the bell. A moment later Brendan answered it. He looked surprised to see her, Katarina enjoyed the way his eyes went wide and how it looked as if he'd forgotten to breathe for a minute.
"Hello Brendan," she said.