This story arose from two writing prompts on the site writing.com, “write about a mad scientist” and “what does the Easter Bunny want with eggs, anyway?” The synergy produced this.
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Her name was Clever Bunny. That was what Whitecoat called her, anyway. He called them all Clever, or Smart, and the young ones had made a game of avoiding his reach until he called them the one they wanted. Presently the buck kits were only answering to “Smart”, and the doe kits to “Clever”. Whitecoat didn’t seem to have caught on, which made it even more fun.
Whitecoat was nice enough, and he made sure his younger white-coats were careful and gentle, too. So life was pretty good. She didn’t much like the cap with the wires she sometimes wore when she was put in a box with a picture screen in front of her. But the pictures were getting more interesting. She got treats for pushing buttons. And if she was patient about the box time, she also got free time in the playroom.
The playroom was great! There were things to climb and dig under and run through and around, things that made sounds and moved when tapped. She especially liked the ball. She would push it with her nose or her feet, into holes and tunnels, up hills and through arches. If another doe was playing with her, they took turns and competed. The young white-coats watched and made marks on their hand boards. Humans were mysterious.
Right now she was hiding the ball in some sand while another kit was behind a rock waiting. Whitecoat was talking to Browncoat, the one who frowned a lot. She heard but did not heed.
“I know the trustees are behind my research. We can learn so much about the brain from animal models!”
“Certainly, Bill, but we do have to keep it a little quiet. The animal rights people are breathing down the university’s neck all the time.”
“They won’t find a better cared-for bunch of experimental animals anywhere, I stake my salary on it. Just look at them!” Browncoat looked. Clever Bunny swiveled her ears at him. The other doe came out and began quartering the sand, quickly locating and digging up the ball. Whitecoat laughed.
“That’s a greeting. She likes an audience. Keith, they’re inventing their own games! The progress is amazing.”
“So is the noise outside. Some of those fools don’t care how good you are to the animals, they will make trouble for you. You are genetically modifying an animal; they hate you. Period. Watch your back, here and at home. Mind you lock up carefully, and set the alarms every time. You don’t always, the janitors tell me.”
“Sorry. I will be more careful. Come along, clever bunnies, time to go to your cages.” Clever Bunny flattened her ears at him, but did not kick when he picked her up. He scratched a little behind her ears as he put her back where she slept.
The room was dark, but the bunnies were wide awake. Someone was making noises outside the door, not a lot of noise, but wrong noise. Not key noise, not janitor noise. Suddenly the door broke open, and there was a lot more noise, loud, screeching noise that sent bunnies into their nests cowering. Many humans came in, with black fur stuff over their faces so only their eyes showed. They grabbed the cages and took them to the windows, which they opened. Then they started shaking the cages.
“You’re free, little rabbits! Go free! Go on, run, get out of there!” One of them was splashing something around that smelled horrible. Two others were breaking things. Breaking was bad, even bunnies knew that.
The Clevers and the Smarts usually felt a lot safer in their cages at night, but these humans were crazy, not nice like the white-coats. As she lost her grip and slid out the window, with the others falling to the ground around her, Clever could only think of finding a new place to hide. She headed for some tall grass and trees. Looking back, she saw flickering light in the windows, and smelled smoke.
No bunny had ever been out of the room before, it was where they had been born. Outside was something you saw from a window. What were they supposed to do now? Who would take care of them? The group stayed together, and ran.
When the sun rose, a huddle of tired, hungry, frightened young bunnies looked around a patch of forest. There was a fence in the distance they would have to get around, or under, if they kept going that way. But there were spots here that looked good for digging. Holes would be good to hide in.
A strange bunny hopped by, and stopped to look at them curiously. She lowered her ears slightly. “Young? No mama? Need to hide.” Her body speech was simple. Some ear signs were completely unknown to them. But she hopped slowly, leading them, toward a large tree with knotty roots sticking out of the ground. She disappeared down a hole among the roots. The youngsters looked at each other and agreed to follow her.
The hole opened out deeper down, and there were some other bunnies curled up together. Much sniffing ensued, and the newcomers were shifted to one side of the warren, where they finally relaxed and slept.
The Clevers and the Smarts learned a lot from the wild bunnies. There was no kibble out here, no treats or tests. They had to eat green stuff, twigs, and roots. The new ear signs were learned painfully, as one of their number was seized by something huge that swooped down out of the sky [“Hawk!”] and one by a large red animal that jumped from hiding and ran away with her [“Foxes!”] They became wary, and worked out watch rotas while eating. Other, more vocal creatures had their own alarm calls, and they learned to pay attention to chattering squirrels and screaming jays. They learned all the entrances and exits of the warren, and met other burrowing creatures. It was cold at night, and getting colder.
The other side of the fence was a “farm”. It had people, and strange animals and birds, and quite a lot to eat, but the people did not like bunnies eating the food. The wild ones showed Clever a hole they had dug under the fence, a long way from the house with the people, so they could get some food when it was colder, with only twigs and pine needles to eat. They also pointed out a thing called a trap, which you absolutely did not want to go into, no matter what food was inside.
They were beginning to see each other rather differently now. They started to mate, both with each other and with the wild ones. And when it was time for kits to be born, there were some problems. The kits had big heads, as the Clevers did, because Whitecoat had been trying to make them smarter, but the does had the same size birth canal as the wild does. If Clevers and Smarts mated with each other, the Clever doe might die trying to give birth. Apparently this hadn’t even occurred to Whitecoat, who was just focused on how smart they were.
If each mated with a wild bunny, things went better. But this was not easy to figure out, since everyone mated with everyone. Clever survived her first litter. The seasons turned.
As the snow melted, wild ducks came to the pond in the woods. This was Clever’s first introduction to the idea of eggs. The ducks sat on them almost all the time, and sometimes another animal would grab the ducks, or grab eggs out from under them. It looked like a dangerous idea. Whatever was it for? About the time her first kits were old enough to venture out with her, she found out. A faint peeping in the tall grass led them to a hidden nest just as the duck stood and eight tiny yellow ducks followed her to the pond and jumped in. The eggshells were left in the nest.
How extraordinary! Ducks did things very differently than bunnies, that was plain!
She was grazing near the hole under the fence when she saw a duck from the farm side squeezing out through it. That was odd. The farm ducks got free food from the people, and foxes did not get through the fence to endanger them. [Bunnies had needed to dig new holes twice already, as the people blocked the ones they found.] Why come out when you had a good deal inside? She waved her ears politely at the duck, who quacked back softly. She waddled under a thick bush, where Clever was surprised to see there were already five eggs, so smeared with mud they could be mistaken for rocks. That was a very well hidden place. Duck settled onto the eggs with a satisfied air.
Clever tried to ask about what was on her mind, though talking to another species was much more difficult than reading the language of her own. “Why outside? Food inside. FOXES!” Foxes were a big danger to the wild ducks setting by the pond.
Duck just spread herself more firmly over her nest. “Mine!” Clever wasn’t certain if she hadn’t understood, or didn’t care.
Whatever did she mean, “mine”? Of course the eggs were hers or she wouldn’t be sitting on them. Clever watched the farm ducks, but they did not seem to be sitting on nests like the wild ones, not for very long. The people went around often, and came out of the bird buildings with baskets, twice a day. Once, the young human set down her basket near the fence and Clever saw it was full of … eggs.
Oh.
So humans were like the skunks that pulled eggs from under the sitting ducks? She hadn’t seen things in quite that light before.
The young human liked to play in the woods, and was trying to make friends of the bunnies. She brought vegetables for treats. Wild bunnies would not take the food until the human was gone. Clever approved of treats, and allowed her kits to approach the human, though she was far more wary since the night of fire and shaken cages. But after her observation, she made sure to lead the little human well away from Duck’s hidden nest before accepting any food.
Duck appreciated this consideration. Another litter was on the way, so Clever and Duck were in a similar situation, after a fashion, and it made a bond between them. They chatted, as well as they could, at dusk and dawn when the bunnies were out grazing. Clever tried to impress on Duck the advantages of a burrow for safety, but Duck just said, “Rabbit burrow. Duck nest.”
One dawn the alarm spread. “Foxes!” The whole colony scattered for the entrances to the warren. But as she dived for safety, Clever heard a despairing squawk.
Shivering, far sooner than she wanted to poke her nose out again, she emerged from the burrow on high alert, and went to check on Duck. Blood and feathers were scattered about, and the eggs lay unattended. Her friend was gone.
Who would care for the eggs now? Clever grieved, and she knew that the eggs had been very important to Duck. Important enough to risk her life. Could another duck raise them? She hopped to the pond, where ducks were huddled in the middle, away from dangers on the shore.
“Eggs.” She pointed with her nose, but the ducks stayed where they were. “Babies.” They marshaled their ducklings close around them.
Clever returned to the abandoned nest. She dared not lie on the eggs, she would be just as vulnerable as Duck, out here under a bush.
A memory stirred. The eggs were not very round, not like a ball, but when she nudged them, they rolled. She set about rolling them, one at a time, to the nearest warren entrance. She could warm them along with her own kits.
The young human came out to play as she was rolling the last egg into the hole. She laughed, and ran back to her mother.
“Mom, you know the bunny in the forest I made friends with? It’s the Easter Bunny! I saw her with eggs!
“Really, Lizzie, the stories you come up with.”
“It’s true! I saw it! She was rolling an egg down her burrow!”
“Well, maybe your friend will bring you some very special eggs for Easter, then.”