Enid Blyton (8 page)

THE FORGOTTEN RABBITS

IN a nice big wooden hutch in a lovely garden lived two rabbits. Their names were Bubble and Squeak, and they were very pretty. Their ears were long and floppy, and their noses went up and down all day long.

They belonged to Winnie and Morris. At first the children had been most excited over their rabbits, and had brought them all kinds of delicious food every hour or two. Then they had grown used to them, and had cleaned their cage out and given them food once a day.

And now, lately, they had begun to forget all about them!

For two whole days the hutch had not been cleaned out! For two whole days the rabbits had had no fresh food.

Mother began to wonder if the rabbits were well looked after, and she went down to see. She was very angry when she found that their cage was so dirty and they had no food at all!

"I shall give the rabbits away," she told Winnie and Morris."If you can't look after your own animals, you are not fit to have any."

"Oh, don't do that," said Winnie, who really liked her rabbits, though she was lazy and couldn't be bothered to remember them. "I'll clean out the hutch and feed them, really I will, Mummy."

But she didn't. She remembered for three days, and then she forgot again. And this time her Mummy was away and

didn't see that the rabbits were forgotten! Auntie Jane was there to look after the children, and she quite thought that Winnie and Morris could be trusted to see to Bubble and Squeak.

The rabbits were hungry. They gnawed at their cage and tried to get out. They could see the green grass and they could see the cabbages in the kitchen-garden and the nice juicy lettuces. They felt as if they must get to them, somehow.

So they gnawed and they gnawed with their sharp teeth. And after three days, when they were so hungry that they could almost have eaten the wire netting, Bubble made a hole nearly big enough to squeeze through! But not quite big enough.

Poor Bubble! He tried to squash his soft body through the hole—and he stuck! He couldn't get forwards and he couldn't get backwards. It was really dreadful.

He began to squeal, and a rabbit squeal is a noise that makes everyone want to rush to its help. There was nobody in the house to hear, because the children and their aunt were out—but Mr. Pink-Whistle heard.

He was walking at the end of the street, quite a long way away—but he heard the rabbit squealing, for he had ears that heard all cries of sadness and pain. He stopped and listened. He ran back down the road in a hurry, rushed into the front gate, round the house, and down the garden to where the rabbit-hutch was.

He soon saw what had happened to poor Bubble! He carefully cut the hole a little wider, took out the frightened rabbit, and placed it back in the hutch.

"Oh, thank you," said Bubble, who knew at once that the little fat man was half a brownie.

Mr. Pink-Whistle looked rather stern. "You should not have tried to escape," he said.  "That was a punishment to you, for trying to run away from a good hutch and kind owners."

"Please, it isn't a good hutch, and Winnie and Morris are not kind," said Bubble at once. "Look—did you ever see such a dirty hutch and nasty hay? Can you see any food at all?"

Mr. Pink-Whistle looked—and he frowned. "No," he said. "There is no food at all—and the hutch is very dirty. Are Winnie and Morris unkind to you?"

"Oh yes," said Squeak, her nose woffling hard, up and down, up and down. "They often forget us. One day we shall die of hunger—and oh, it's dreadful to be hungry and yet see all that food out there, beyond our cage. That's why we tried to escape."

"You poor, poor things!" said tenderhearted Mr. Pink-Whistle. "Children have no right to keep pets unless they look 
after them properly! This is a very wicked thing I hear!"

He opened the door of the cage wide. "Come out, little rabbits," he said. "Go and eat all you want—and then run to the hills and live there in a burrow. I will not let these children keep you."

The rabbits hopped out gladly. They rushed to the lettuces, which grew in the children's own garden, and they ate the whole lot! They ate a row of new green pea-plants, and they nibbled the tops off the young turnips. Oh, they had a wonderful time! Then off they ran to the hills, and found a cosy burrow for the two of them.

Mr. Pink-Whistle stared at the empty cage and his face was sad. "What a lot of unfair things happen!" he said. "Those were harmless, kindly little rabbits—and yet Winnie and Morris made them hungry, thin, and miserable! Well, I've put things 
right for Bubble and Squeak—and now I must see to Winnie and Morris!"

He soon saw the children—bonny, fat, and healthy, with rosy faces and shining eyes.

"People don't forget
your
meals!" he thought. "You are chubby and fat. And
your
beds won't be dirty and smelly, unmade for days! No—they will be sweet and clean and fresh! My dear children, I have to teach you a lesson. You won't like it, but I cannot have you treating little creatures, smaller than yourselves, so unkindly as you have treated those two 'rabbits."

Mr. Pink-Whistle made himself disappear. He couldn't be seen at all. He went into the house and up the stairs, and soon found the children's rooms with their pretty white beds and blue eider-downs.

Mr. Pink-Whistle pulled all the bedclothes off. He jumped on the white sheets
with his dirty boots!
   
 

What a mess he made of those two nice beds!

"Now the children will know what the rabbits felt like, having no nice clean cage to sleep in!" said Mr. Pink-Whistle.

He went downstairs. Aunt Jane had placed two plates of delicious-smelling stew on the table for the children, who had gone to wash their hands. Mr. Pink-Whistle took the plates and emptied them out of the window! Then he put them back on the table.

What a to-do there was when Aunt Jane and the children came into the dining-room!

"How quickly you've eaten your dinner!" cried Aunt Jane.

"We haven't eaten
any
of it!" said Morris, staring in surprise at his empty plate, smeared with gravy.

"You must have," said Aunt Jane.

"Your plates are empty. Don't tell naughty stories!"

"We're not!" said Winnie. "Some one's eaten it instead of us. Can we have some more, Aunt Jane?"

"There isn't any," said her aunt. "You must have the pudding now. I simply can't understand it!"

Nor could the children. They were hungry and had so much wanted their stew. Aunt Jane went to get the pudding.

It was a treacle pudding, and it sat upright on a big dish. Just as she set the dish on the table and turned round to get a spoon, Mr. Pink-Whistle whipped the pudding off the dish and threw it out of the window!

Plonk! It landed on the grass and broke into bits. The children screamed in horror. "Our pudding! It jumped off the dish!"

Aunt Jane hadn't seen what happened. She was very, very angry. "You are being naughty children!" she cried. "
You
threw it out of the window—I know you did! It must have been you, for there's no one else here! Look at it there, smashed on the lawn! Go up to bed, both of you!"

Crying bitterly the two children went upstairs to bed—and then they saw their dirty, untidy beds, with the clothes on the floor. They called their aunt, and she looked at the mess in dismay.

"We didn't do it, really we didn't," sobbed Winnie. "Please believe us, Aunt Jane."

Aunt Jane didn't know what to think. She made the beds, and told the children to get undressed. Winnie went to a drawer of her chest as soon as her aunt had gone. "I've got some biscuits and chocolate here, Morris," she said. "Let's have them. I'm so hungry!"

But as soon as she opened her drawer, Mr. Pink-Whistle's invisible hand went in, and he took out the packet of biscuits and the bar of chocolate. He threw them out of the window.

The children screamed with rage and fright. Whatever could be happening! Then Mr. Pink-Whistle pulled their beds to pieces again and jumped on the sheets!

"Who is it? Who is it? It's some one we can't see!"wept Winnie.

"Yes," said Mr. Pink-Whistle.
 
"But

now you
shall
see me!" He muttered some very magic words—and hey presto! there he was, standing in front of the children, a little fat man with pointed brownie ears and large green eyes.

"Good-morning!" he said. "I'm sorry to behave like this—but for the sake of Bubble and Squeak I have to put things right. You forgot to clean their bed—so I've made your beds dirty and untidy to show you how horrid it is. You forgot 
to give them food and they went hungry.