Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery (4 page)

“That bunny,” he whispered to me across our food bowls, “got out of his cage last night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “How could he break through that wire? Look how little he is.”

“That’s just it! He didn’t break through any wire. He got out of his cage without breaking anything, or opening any doors!”

I looked puzzled. So Chester told me the following story.

“Now, Harold,” he said, “I don’t want you thinking I’m not a good watchcat, but after a few hours last night, I grew curious about the time. I went into the hallway and … you know that new clock they’ve got? The big one? That goes all the way to the ceiling? Well, see, it has this thing in the middle called a pendulum. At first, I figured I would just leave it alone. It looked like that spool they tied on a string and hung from the doorknob for me to play with when I was a kitten. Everytime I hit that silly spool with my paw, it would swing back and hit me on the nose. I hated that toy. So naturally, when I saw this one, I decided not to have anything to do with it. I checked the time. It was midnight. I was all set to go back to the living room when something stopped me.”

“Curiosity?” I ventured.

“I suppose you could call it that. I prefer to think of it as the challenge of the unknown. I put one paw over my nose and reached out with the other one and gave it one good smack. I darn near broke my arm. It’s still tender; see how swollen it is.”

He showed me his little paw. I couldn’t see anything wrong. But I knew better than to argue with him. “Oh yes,” I said, “that looks terrible. You must be suffering awfully. You’d better go easy today.” He limped dramatically, just far enough to display his new handicap, and continued.

“I couldn’t even get to the pendulum. Somebody had put glass in front of it, and I was pretty mad. I was all set to go back, but at the same time, I couldn’t help watching the thing move back and forth, back and forth. Back and forth … It was so easy to watch, and before I knew what had happened, I was waking up.”

“You fell asleep?” I asked incredulously.

“I couldn’t help it. I didn’t even know it had happened. But I looked up at the face of the clock and it was twelve forty-five! I’d been gone forty-five minutes. I ran back into the living room, looked at Bunnicula’s cage, and it was empty. I couldn’t imagine where he was. Then I noticed a light coming from under the kitchen door. I went into a crouch, stalking the light, when …
click
… I heard the refrigerator door close, and the light went out.”

“It must have been Mr. Monroe having his midnight snack,” I suggested.

“No, that’s what I thought. I jumped on my chair, curled up real quick and kept one eye open, pretending to be asleep. Slowly, the door to the kitchen squeaked open. This little head poked out from around the corner and looked to either side to see if the coast was clear. Then … guess who came bouncing out all by himself, and with that idiotic grin of his plastered all over his face?”

“Well … I guess it wasn’t Mr. Monroe,” I said.

“Not unless he wears bunny pajamas and gets very tiny at night.”

“Bunnicula, huh?”

“You got it. Unfortunately, I hadn’t positioned myself so that I could see him get back into the cage. And I didn’t want to let him know that I had seen anything, so I had to stay put. I still don’t know how he got out, or back in.”

At this point, Mr. Monroe came downstairs to make breakfast.

I wondered if Chester hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. He did admit he’d fallen asleep and, as I’ve said, he has quite an imagination. But I was game. After all, there hadn’t been any excitement in this place for days. Chester and I took our positions under the kitchen table. We didn’t have long to wait.

“Holy cow!” Mr. Monroe yelped as he opened the refrigerator door. He took this funny-looking white thing out of the fridge and held it at arm’s length.

“Peter, come down here!”

“What is that?” I whispered.

“Beats me,” Chester answered. “It looks like a white tomato.”

“Very funny,” I said, as Pete came into the kitchen.

“Peter, have you been playing with your chemistry set in here?”

“No, Dad, why?”

“I thought this might be one of your experiments. Do you know what it is?”

“Gee, Dad, it looks like a white tomato.”

Just then, Mrs. Monroe and Toby came in the door.

“What’s all the fuss about?” Mrs. Monroe asked.

“We were just trying to figure out what this is.”

Toby pulled it down so he could get a better look.

“Well,” he said, “it looks to me like a white tomato.”

Mr. Monroe took a good long look. “You know,” he said to his wife, “it really does look like a white tomato.”

“There’s one way to find out,” said Mrs. Monroe, who always was the practical one. “Let’s cut it open and see what’s inside.”

Everybody gathered around the table. I jumped up on a chair, and in all the excitement, no one noticed that I had my paws on the table (which under normal circumstances was discouraged, to say the least). Chester wasn’t so lucky.

“Chester, get off the table,” Mrs. Monroe said. Chester jumped onto Toby’s shoulders, where he stayed to view the proceedings.

Mrs. Monroe took her sharpest knife and cut cleanly through the thing. It fell into two halves.

“It’s a tomato, all right,” said Mrs. Monroe. “Here are the seeds.”

“But it’s all white,” Toby observed.

“And look,” said Pete, “it’s dry.”

“So it is,” Mr. Monroe said, as he picked up one of the halves. “There is no juice at all. Well, Ann, what do you think?”

“It’s gone bad, I guess, though I’ve never heard of a tomato turning white before. Come on,” she said, clearing the table, “let’s throw it out and have breakfast. And Harold, get your paws off the table.”

Rats.

Chester jumped down from Toby’s shoulders and motioned for me to follow him into the living room.

“This had better be important,” I said. “They’re cooking bacon.”

“A white tomato. Very significant,” Chester murmured.

“So it’s a white tomato,” I said, edging my way back to the kitchen door. “What does that have to do with Bunnicula?”

“I can tell you one thing,” Chester said. “I got a good look at the tomato. There were very suspicious marks on the skin.” So?

“I believe they’re teeth marks.”

“So?”

“So tonight I’m going to reread a book I read last year.”

“How fascinating,” I said, as the aroma of frying bacon wafted across my nostrils. “And what book might that be?”

“
The Mark of the Vampire!
”

“What!” I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Meet me tonight after the others have gone to sleep. You’d better take a nap today so you can stay awake.”

Chester closed his eyes. I shifted my look to Bunnicula, who seemed to be asleep in this cage. A tiny smile sat upon his lips. A happy dream? I wondered. Or something else?

My reverie was broken by the sound of crunching bacon. I was in the kitchen in a flash.

I almost didn’t make it to my meeting with Chester that night. Toby had a feast in his room. It was Friday night, and on Friday nights, Toby gets to stay up and read as late as he wants to. So, of course, he needs lots of food to keep up his strength. Good food like cheese crackers, chocolate cupcakes (my very favorite, the kind with cream in the middle,
mmmm
!), pretzels, and peanut butter sandwiches. The last I cannot abide because my mouth always gets stuck. Chocolate cupcakes with cream in the center, however, are another story.

This particular evening, I stationed myself on Toby’s stomach. Usually, I’m a little more subtle but, having missed out on the bacon at breakfast, I was not about to take any chances on the chocolate cupcakes (with cream in the center).

Toby knew what I was after. But sometimes he thinks he’s funny, and he plays little games with me.

“Hi, Harold, I’ll bet you’d like a peanut butter sandwich, wouldn’t you? Here, you have this one that’s leftover from yesterday, while I eat this boring old chocolate cupcake—which is nice and fresh and has cream in the middle. Okay, Harold?”

Ha ha. My sides are splitting.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want the peanut butter sandwich? All right, I’ll put it away for another night. Oh, here’s something you might like. It’s a green sourball from Dad’s candy dish that was stuck to my sock. Would you like that, huh, pal?”

Oh boy, the kid is really hot tonight.

“No, huh? Well, I’d give you one of my cupcakes, but I know how much you hate chocolate.”

Would a little drooling on your stomach help convince you otherwise?

“Oh, you like chocolate! Okay then, you can have both of them!”

One thing I have to say about Toby: Although he’s got a rotten sense of humor, he’s a nice kid. Naturally, once I’d eaten both cupcakes (which took approximately four seconds), I felt obliged to hang around and let Toby know I was grateful. What better way than to share a few of his cheese crackers?

“Well, Harold,” Toby said some time later, “we’ve had quite a party, but I have to go to sleep now. I can’t keep my eyes open, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what happens in the next chapter. This is a good book, Harold. It’s called
Treasure Island
, and it’s by a man named Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s kind of hard reading, though. I have to keep looking the big words up in the dictionary, so it’s taking me a long time to get through it.”

I’ve always had trouble with words myself. Half the time they don’t mean what I think they’re going to, and then, even when I do find out what they mean, I forget the next day anyway. You might say that I’m smart—but just not the scholarly type.

“But it’s a really good story,” Toby continued. “It’s all about pirates and this little boy just like me.”

No dogs?

“And a parrot, Harold.”

A parrot? What’s a parrot? Is there anything about chocolate cake? That’s my idea of a treasure.

“Well, good night, Harold. If you’re going to sleep here, you’ll have to get off my stomach because it’s a little full right now.”

Good night, Toby.

I curled up at the foot of the bed, but I couldn’t sleep trying to figure out what a parrot was. I thought it might be a lady pirate, since the words sounded something alike, but then again, I thought it might be an umbrella. Chester would know, I thought, so I went downstairs to ask him.

“Well, you certainly took your time,” Chester snapped as I sauntered casually into the room. “I finished my book half an hour ago. Where were you?”

“It so happens I was discussing great works of literature with Toby.”

“Since when is a Twinkies wrapper considered a great work of literature?”

I decided to ignore that. Unfortunately, several chocolate crumbs fell from my mouth to the floor at precisely that moment.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, trying valiantly to regain my dignity, “we were talking about
Treasure Island
. Ever hear of it?”

“Ever hear of it?” he sneered. “I read
that
when I was a kitten.”

“Oh. Then, tell me, Chester, what is a parrot?”

Chester looked at me scornfully. “A parrot,” he said, “is a tropical zygodactyl bird (order psittaciformes) that has a stout curved hooked bill, is often crested, brightly variegated, and an excellent mimic. In other words, Harold, a parrot is a little bird with a big mouth.”

“Oh,” I said after a moment. “I thought maybe it was an umbrella.”

“Did you get so busy discussing parrots with Toby that you forgot you were going to meet me here? This is important, Harold.”

I still wasn’t sure what a parrot was, but I decided this was not the time to pursue it.

“Come over here,” Chester commanded, indicating his chair, “and let me show you this book.”

I looked at the chair. Chester was already sitting in it, with a very large book open in front of him.

“I don’t think there’s going to be room for both of us, Chester,” I said.

“Come on, come on, you’re wasting time. Just jump up here.”

I surveyed the scene carefully. I knew I would have to get a running start since there was just a tiny spot left for me and I would never be able to fit into it if I pulled myself up slowly. Apparently, I was taking too long for Chester’s liking.