Landscape

Teal

Teal’s Terrible Tree


Chapter One

I was startled awake by a violent shaking, nearly knocking me out of the nest. I was so surprised, I flew upward, only to bang my head on a close branch and plop with a smack back into the nest.

The shaking stopped but before I could gather my dignity enough to exit the nest more gracefully, it began again. All I could do was hold on and ride it out, grateful that there were not eggs in the nest. They were coming soon, I knew, but hadn’t yet arrived. Jim had said the delay was most likely due to my complete exhaustion after days of hunting for a place to nest and had urged me to rest while he hunted for something to add extra cushioning.

He’s a good mockingbird, my Jim, a good friend and a good partner, even when things go wrong. I know because even though this was our first season together and our very first nest, plenty had gone wrong already, enough for me to get an idea of what he would be like in a crises.

I had agreed to rest, mostly because I was just too tired to resist. The past few days had been quite an adventure. We both had been so thrilled to find the other, we sang our joy from the top of every tree, going from tree to tree to fence post to farm roof to desert cactus to, well, until we had no idea where we were.

After a couple of scary nights, the first spent outside the comfort of our family nests, we managed to find our way back home. But by then, all the nests were taken. All the good sites for new nests were taken. Even the smaller nests smaller birds could be chased out of were taken.

So, for another day we searched and searched, until we found this small tree in the middle of the grove of tall trees that separate the farmland from the desert. It was higher from the ground than Mockingbirds usually like but we had to make do.

I was just starting to relax that morning and dozed off thinking maybe it would all be okay after all when the shaking started and shook me awake.

The shaking slowed enough for me to jump to the branch above and fly off. To my great surprise, there was no wind. There was no large animal rubbing against the tree. There wasn’t so much as a quiver running through the other trees. Just my tree. Great.

I spent a long, sleepless, nerve-wrecking morning flying up and watching the other trees, walking around the tree trunk on the ground, and hopping from branch to branch. I couldn’t see anything unusual, certainly nothing to explain the intermittent shaking.

Jim wasn’t pleased when he returned to find me even more restless and nervous than I had been when he left. It came close to being our first really big fight. He blamed my nerves, saying what I was describing was impossible. I, of course, took offense at that and we were both hopping up and down on the branch and flapping our wings when the tree shuddered wildly and swayed madly to the west.

That shut Jim up, all right. He repeated my inspections, but couldn’t find any more than I had. We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to decide whether to start over and find another place, or try to secure the nest to withstand this unexplainable shaking.


Chapter Two

In the end, we decided it came down to nest or no nest and even with the shaking this was a pretty good spot. So we spent the rest of the time before the sun set weaving twigs around small branches to keep the nest from wobbling. The shaking occurred every once in a while but by the end of the day, we had become pretty much used to it. I don’t know if the shaking continued after dark, I was too tired to wake up if it did.

Very early the next morning, with just a few slivers of light slipping through the trees, the eggs arrived. Three of the most beautiful, perfect eggs I’d ever seen. Jim was so full of joy he flew to the top of the tree and sang me a song he made up on the spot. To this day, when I’m worried or feeling bad, he sings that song for me and it always makes me smile.

And so the long vigil began. One of us was on the nest every moment of every day. It was tiring and difficult. We had to be very still while on the nest, especially when we saw cats or bigger birds in the area. And when we weren’t sitting on the nest we were scrambling to find enough food to get through the long times we sat.

The tree would continue to shake a few times each day, some more, some less. We met other birds in the area who said none of them would nest there because that tree was very strange. No one knew why, but it was obviously very, very strange.

Jim and I just shrugged and said we were used to it. What harm in a little shaking? And we went on with our vigil, anxiously anticipating the wonderful moment when the eggs would open.

Hatching eggs is one of those things you wish for so badly… until it happens. From the moment the first precious little beak broke the first shell, we spent every moment just trying to find enough food to keep them happy. It is amazing how much food three little tiny birds can eat!

We suddenly found ourselves with no time for singing or writing songs or chatting with our friends or even for sleeping. While on the nest, we groomed and cared for the little ones and when off, we frantically hunted for more and more food.

But as these things seem to go, we slowly worked our way into a rhythm and it all became easier. We started to really enjoy the babies, bold, daring Pearl, strong, solid Aaron and the tiniest of the three, wide-eyed Coral.

The shaking had slowed quite a lot and I’d spent enough time watching for it, I was beginning to be able to predict when it would start. The babies each reacted in their own way. Pearl chuckled, obviously finding the movement exciting. Aaron tried to peak over the edge of the nest, as if he was already trying to figure out what caused it and Coral would cling to the nest in terror.


Chapter Three

One morning, early, I noticed something. I suddenly realized there was a pattern to all this I hadn’t noticed before. It had been happening a lot since the eggs had hatched. The tall graceful tree beside our tree would gently sway, as if in a nice, spring breeze. But there was no breeze. The top of the tree would almost touch the top of our tree, except our tree would, well the only way I can describe it sounds silly I know, but it would bow, it’s top dipping low toward the ground. Both trees would then return to their normal, upright position and become very still.

I realized this happened just after every one of the times the tree had been shaking. It was as if… and suddenly I realized just before the tree would shake, something would happen just over the small hill that created our horizon, a flock of birds would disappear over the hill, smoke would rise on the other side, a sharp sound would come from there, something. Then the shaking would start and continue off and on until the taller tree would bend and our tree would bend and the shaking would stop.

Jim arrived mid-morning with a beautiful branch full of ripe berries. We were all feasting on this great find and I looked at Jim and said, “I think this tree is trying to see over the hill.”

He looked at me, cocked his head to look at the berries and said, “You think they’re too ripe?”

Now, all Mockingbirds know that too-ripe berries can cause a big upset and can even cause a bird to do things she wouldn’t other wise do.

“I’m not hallucinating,” I said. “It makes sense.”

“To you, maybe,” he said with a bob of his head, “But it sounds like one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard.”

“What’s so crazy?” I asked. “You don’t think trees want things? You think they just sit here? Maybe they have wants. Maybe they see us flying and wish they could fly. Maybe they wish they could run through the fields like the cats, maybe they wish they could leap high in the grass like the bunnies.”

Jim cocked his head again and said, “Maybe you should get off the nest for a while. I’ve stretched my wings, I’ll take the rest of your shift. In fact, there’s plenty of food here for a bit, why don’t you go visit one of your friends?”

“I’m not crazy!” I said, outraged.

“I didn’t say you were,” he said, with a very annoying calmness in his voice.

“I’m not crazy!” I shouted, lifting off the nest carelessly and once again banging my head on the branch above. All three babies stared at me wide-eyed and frightened.

“Calm yourself,” Jim said. “You’re scaring the babies.”

I’m not sure if I’m the only one who’s noticed this or not, but the last thing in the world you should say to someone who’s anger is rising is, “Calm yourself.”

I started to sputter, then decided the words I had to say to Jim were not fit for little ones to hear. With a shake of my head, I jumped to the higher branch and flew off.

I stayed away much longer than I should have, especially since I hadn’t left him with much food, but it helped. It took a lot of muttering to myself, and a lot of flying as hard and fast as I could, but slowly I calmed down. I slowly admitted to myself, though I’d never admit it to him, that he did have a point. What I said did sound crazy.

But, crazy as it sounded, I was sure I was right. That tree wanted to see over the hill and was trying to walk or grow or even fly, if he could. He just didn’t want to sit there being a tree. He wanted to see what was over that hill. I didn’t blame him. I always want to see what’s over the hill, and the next one and the next one. And even flying can’t help me to see too far. It’s scary out there without the protection of the family, so some hills I just have to long to see over. Yeah, I could understand how frustrating it could be some times.

I decided the taller tree was his mother, or maybe his father, or do trees have mothers and fathers? I realized how little I knew about trees, even though I spent most of my life in and around them.

At that moment, I even felt sorry for the small tree, surrounded by much taller trees and down the slope of the hill enough he couldn’t see over it.

In fact, I thought about trying to talk to the tree, though I had no idea how you would talk to a tree. Do they have ears? Where? Can they hear us talking to each other? Feel us walking on their branches? Does it hurt when birds peck into their bark? I started to feel really creepy, to tell the truth, almost afraid to land on a branch.

But when I returned to the nest and found a very frazzled Jim, who swore the shaking had almost thrown him out of the nest and three very vulnerable babies, still shaking from fear, I lost all sympathy.

“Grow up! You’re making us crazy!” I said, much to Jim’s surprise. He was even more surprised when I told him I wasn’t talking to him but to the tree.

After reassurances that I had not been down by the creek where the berries sit in the sun all day and get too ripe, he left me with the babies and went off to get some rest himself.


Chapter Four

Fledging day is the most important day in a bird’s life. That most wonderful day when you first step out of that nest and into the air. Terrifying, thrilling and sometimes downright embarrassing, it’s the moment you first become a real bird. You fly. Even though we’re all a bit awkward at first, and it’s not the prettiest flight we’ll ever make, it’s still flying.

The days up to that moment are fraught with anxiety on the part of both the fledgling and the parents. A step out into the air made too soon spells disaster. A fledgling who can’t fly even enough to drift to a branch below ends up on the ground, completely vulnerable to any predator around. Timing is everything.

We all knew the day was coming for our three little ones, but no one knew quite when it would be. Every morning was exciting. Would this be the day?

One beautiful, warm day, I awoke with a certainty that this would be the day for Pearl. She had hopped to the edge of the nest several times the day before and when she flapped her wings, she even lifted a few inches. Being the largest and most daring of the three, no one questioned that she would be the first.

Jim was due back any minute with food and I hoped she would wait for him to see her maiden flight. He’d be so disappointed if he didn’t.

But before he arrived, her insistent pressing to get to the edge of the nest pushed me to step aside and give her the room. She hopped to the edge, her brother hopped up beside her.

“No, Aaron, you’re not quite ready yet,” I said. With a disappointed look back at me, he turned to watch his sister.

Without the slightest hesitation, with no longing look back at the safety of the nest, or even her mom, Pearl lifted off the nest and began to fly up to the branch above with a calmness and grace that made it appear easy.

Aaron hopped up and down in excitement and looked back at me, pleading. I shook my head, forbidding him to try it. He was strong enough but seemed so awkward and unsure, we had decided he should wait.

Pearl landed on the branch above with a shout of joy. At just that moment, the tree gave a violent shake. Pearl lost her balance and fell from the branch. Aaron was tossed sideways, off the nest and down toward the ground.

I watched in horror as both of them floundered in the air. Pearl, frightened by the sudden movement, forgot everything she had learned about flying and fell harder and faster to the ground than her brother. They landed several feet apart. I froze. I could only go to one of them. How do you make that kind of decision?

I quickly scanned the ground, gratefully seeing nothing but grass. I looked up and with great relief saw Jim swooping down, dropping a branch of berries he had been bringing back to the nest.

“Get Aaron! He shouted as he sped past the nest and landed neatly beside a very frantic Pearl. I dropped almost as quickly as they two babies had, landing beside Aaron. Now, all we had to do was calm them both enough that we could get them closer together and take turns coaxing them up the tree and standing guard in case a predator showed up.

Not too bad, we should get them both back to the nest without too much trouble. Looking up toward the nest, it took me a couple of seconds to realize what I was looking at. Something moving over the tree, what could that….a hawk! Coral was alone in the nest!

The horror that ran through my body froze my throat and I could only croak a meaningless sound. I don’t know what happened to me at that moment, but I started to react without even realizing what I was doing, let alone thinking about it first.

I kicked (yes, kicked!) little Aaron with enough force to roll him within wingtip of Jim and as I lifted I saw him pull the two under his wings, the little bit of safety he could offer without my help.

Flying as hard and fast as I could, I looked up. The hawk dropped out of the sky, swinging into a beautiful arch that would take him to the nest and out of the tree and back into the sky.

I’d never make it. I was too far away. All the strength I had wasn’t enough. The branches were flying by with a speed I’d never experienced before, but it wasn’t enough. I can’t begin to describe the complete desperation I experienced. I wasn’t going to make it. My poor, quiet, little Coral was lost.

The hawk was inches from the nest. I tried to look away but my eyes refused to leave the horrible scene. I actually flew faster, though all I wanted to do was not see what I was seeing. I was helpless, flying faster than I knew how and watching a hawk lift that poor, darling little bird out of the nest. Except he wasn’t. I was almost on top of the nest myself before I realized I had just seen something I couldn’t have seen. The hawk hadn’t taken her. The hawk had missed. It took even longer for me to clear my head of the fear and realize I knew why he had missed.

Later, every bird in the area landed to tell us their version of what happened. It appears all of them were watching me, not the hawk. Some were amazed at the speed with which I was climbing. Others watched in terror, knowing the distance was too great.

They all celebrated that the hawk turned away before reaching the nest, though no one admitted to seeing it happen. No one could quite explain why it had, some said the branches must have been too close together, others that something bigger caught his eye and he changed him mind. It wasn’t a big deal to anyone, anyway. The joy of Coral’s escape was too great to question how it happened.

But I saw what really happened. No one, not even Jim believed me when I told them, and quite honestly I find the subject so painful, I never tried very hard to convince them. But it did happen. It did. And Jim knows it did, I’m sure, even though he will deny it until the day he dies.

There was not a breath of air at that moment, but the tall tree next to ours suddenly swayed, just as suddenly as the quick shaking happened in our tree. She (I’ll always think of her as our tree’s mom) swayed away from us and then snapped back the top of her trunk with a surprising force. The tip hit the hawk. I know it did because I saw him change course in a way he couldn’t have done by himself and then he lost his balance and fluttered for just a second. Regaining his flight, he changed course to rise up and way, looking back in surprise at the tree.

She had saved my Coral’s life. She’d been trying to stop our little tree from making it so difficult for us and couldn’t stand the idea that he would cause such a loss. I know I’m right. I tried to think of some way to thank her but I finally decided she was a mother too, she must already know.


Chapter five

The babies have grown and are off on their own now. Pearl is still the most adventurous and has gotten herself in one crises after another. Jim says she has so many lives she must be part cat.

Aaron has settled down with a very beautiful singer from down the creek and they have taken to living in some tall brush near the tree I think of as the mother tree. I don’t know why, but he also refers to that tree as “she” and sometimes I wonder if he might have seen what I did that awful morning so long ago.

Coral, still the quiet one, has become one of the most graceful flyers in the area. She never tries to compete and acts embarrassed when others talk of how beautifully she flies, but I think secretly she’s as proud of her flights as I am.

Jim laughs when he tells about the time Coral was almost a hawk’s lunch. He tells everyone about how had it had been so difficult to find a place to nest and how I was so stressed by it all I imagined things. I don’t even protest anymore when he says it. Jim’s is the only version of this story the babies have ever heard.

We’ve been told the little tree drooped so badly for weeks after we left the nest, the people almost cut him. Jim says the tree must have been sick and I must have been hallucinating in sympathy. He somehow has forgotten his own puzzlement over the shaking, especially since now the tree is as tall as his mother and is a very popular place for nesting.

I’d like to forgive that tree. I’d like to laugh at it like Jim does. But late at night, I see that horrible hawk bearing down on my poor, defenseless Coral and know it was all because of that little tree’s selfishness.

There is hope, though. I feel less angry at that terrible tree right now. Coral came home today very subdued. It took some time to get her to tell us what happened. We had to promise we wouldn’t laugh before she would say anything.

She had gone out into the desert to look for bugs and hadn’t noticed she was too far from shelter. A hawk appeared out of nowhere. She had flown as fast as she could but the trees were too far away, she was sure. She gained a little time by cutting down and then up again, but was pretty sure it was hopeless.

The line of trees was getting closer but she could almost feel the hawk right on her tail. Suddenly, one of the trees… here she hesitated and looked down at the branch… seemed to, well it was impossible, we all know, but seemed to reach out to her. She was just out of reach and then suddenly she was between the branches and the hawk was squealing in fear and flying away.

She knew it was impossible, we didn’t have to say it, she said, but she’d always be fond of that tree when she saw it, anyway. With a laugh she said it was the one right next to that graceful tall tree Aaron hung around. Maybe Aaron wasn’t so crazy to like it there.

I said nothing. Just embraced her in my wings and held her. Jim started a lecture about not getting too far from shelter but stopped when his eyes met mine. He looked a bit sheepish for a moment, then he muttered something about Coral being just like her mother and left.

Maybe someday I’ll talk to her about it. Maybe someday I’ll talk to Aaron to find out what he saw. But for now, I’ll just be grateful to have my Coral still here and maybe try to find a way to understand, and yes, even forgive that terrible little tree.

The End












A Nest for Tara

Chapter One

It was one of those fateful moments, when suddenly the perfect solution to the previously-thought unsolvable problem appears in a flash.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking mockingbirds don’t have problems, just wile away the day singing in a tree. Well, that might be true for a lot of mockingbirds, but then they weren’t insane enough to offer protection to Tara.

I shouldn’t say insane, that’s not fair. My sweet Jim is certainly not insane, just very nice and he felt sorry for the scrawny, gawky little bird who arrived in our meadow, barely old enough to be out of the nest.

Tara had flown all the way from her family nest on the edge of the forest to our meadow. That was quite a feat for such a small mockingbird. I have to give credit where credit is due and I was impressed.

The forest was a dangerous place, she said. And food was scarce and life was a struggle there. She wanted better for her little ones, a better life than the one she was being offered.

How could you argue with that? Isn’t that what we all want, a good life for our babies? My poor Jim melted, of course, and I have to admit I felt sorry for the little thing myself. She claimed some distant relation to Jim, who swears he understands the connection but every time he tries to explain it to me I get lost in the “father of” and “mother of” lists.

Regardless, we offered protection and responsibility and took her under our wing, so to speak.

She’d given us a clue, that very first meeting, but of course, we didn’t see it until way after it was too late. You see, what she was really saying was that her family home wasn’t good enough for her.

It has since become apparent that it’s not only her family home she finds lacking, but nearly everything. Actually, on deeper thought, I’d have say not nearly everything, but everything. I can’t think of a single thing she’s looked upon with approval since she’s arrived.

So, at that fateful moment, there she stood, sighing at my inability to comprehend such simple facts. She was asking for more preference in her food, preference over our own little ones just hatched.

Why couldn’t I have figured this out on my own, the cock of her head seemed to ask, and spare her the awful task of asking for it?

“I wouldn’t ask for myself,” she was saying. “Of course, you know, Auntie Teal, I’m just a simple bird at heart. I need very little. But it’s important to do what I can to insure the best for my little ones. It’s something I must do, no matter how hard it makes my life.”

My first thought was, if I had a nice juicy grasshopper for every time I’d heard her say that, I’d be one fat mockingbird. I wanted to argue, not that arguing would do any good. Tara always had a perfectly good reason why you should do exactly what she wanted. This time, it was something to do with the fact that, freshly hatched, the little ones wouldn’t know a scraggly, old beetle from a strawberry.

No, I wouldn’t ask her if she really thought I would feed my babies dusty old beetles or why her little ones, not even a glimmer of an egg yet, were more important than mine, already hatched and growing.

No, I wouldn’t ask why we were even discussing this, since she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself now.

That’s when it struck me, like a flash of lightening. I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since she had arrived I think, and noticed how nicely she had filled out. She was no longer gawky or scraggly, but was quite a nice looking young mockingbird.

I would find her a mate.

What a brilliant idea. And then she would be his problem. All I had to do was find her a mate and get her through the first nesting.

Once a pair complete their first nesting and hatch their first clutch, they’re on their own. They’re grown up and on their own.

There’s no going back to the family nest after that, not when you are a mockingbird. From what I’ve heard, the only ones having that problem are humans. There, see, Teal, it could be worse. You could be a human.

Now, to find a young mockingbird stupid…ah, I mean, good enough for Tara.


Chapter Two

“Are you out of your mind?” Tara looked at me as if I had suddenly grown an extra beak. “Bernard? Have you ever looked at him?”

“Well, he is a little small,” I admitted, “But he does come from a good family, and he’s got use of a very nice tree. From what I hear, he’d make a very good…”

“He’s lopsided!” she screeched. “He’s ugly! He shouldn’t even be allowed to live!”

“I’m sorry, it was just an idea. I didn’t know what I was thinking,” I murmured. She was drawing a crowd and they were already starting to take sides in the issue and this was not something I wanted debated around the meadow.

I was already running into a backlash of sorts. Several young birds had made it clear that they were looking for a mate who would help them, not one as uncompromising as Tara.

“Well,” Tara said, shaking herself and stretching a wing. “Next time keep your ideas to yourself. Ugh!”

I think I was more disappointed than angry. In this case, she was closer to being right than I wanted to admit. Bernard was a particularly unattractive bird. And while I know Tara was reacting to his outward appearance, I personally suspected an even less attractive personality lurked under those feathers.

Of course, I shouldn’t have even considered him. I don’t wish her unhappiness, particularly. Well, actually, to be honest, I don’t really care much about her happiness or unhappiness anymore, as long as it stops being my problem.

But she had managed to find something disgusting about every bird I suggested and I was becoming desperate.

Tara was making no effort at either finding herself a mate or trying to find something worthwhile in the ones we suggested for her. Not that she had made much of an effort at anything since she had arrived, but this should be something she had an interest in, shouldn’t it? When asked, she would just shrug and say it would happen when it happened.

How could any young bird be so convinced everything would just drop into her lap?

It was enough to drive a poor bird to the forbidden bushes. Not that I would, of course. I have responsibilities and birds depending on me, but… well… for the first time it is an attractive idea.

I should explain. The forbidden bushes are just that, forbidden, because of the effect they have on birds. Well, to be precise, for the effect their berries have on birds, especially mockingbirds.

The berries appear innocent enough, not much different from the raspberries and blueberries we all eat, and many a young bird has ignored the warnings and tried them. Some grow out of the fascination with the effects but for some they are too intoxicating to pass up. Those poor birds skip their lessons, ignore their duties, never mate or build a nest and miss out on all that life has to offer.

I’d never spent much time out there, myself, but I was beginning to see how a bird could become attracted to that life. What if I couldn’t find a mate good enough for her? What if she stayed with us long into our old age? What if… Oh, I’d better not think about this anymore.

Get a grip, Teal. You only need one bird. Just one little mockingbird who’s perfect, completely and absolutely perfectly acceptable to Tara.

There just has to be such a bird. There has to be.


Chapter Three

“Oh, you should see him fly! He’s so fast and so graceful and oh, you should just see him! And he’s so gorgeous! And … and he winked at me!”

Tara’s enthusiasm was almost boundless. You’d think that would be good, considering how hard we’d worked to find her a mate, wouldn’t you? Well, that enthusiasm was matched or maybe even surpassed in intensity by the disapproval reeking from every feather on my darling Jim.

Tara fluttered on and on, ignoring the scene unfolding in front of her.

“You said to find someone she really likes,” I ventured quietly. “You wanted her to be happy.”

“Zach?” my sweet Jim asked, in a tone I had never heard him use before. “You introduced her to Zach?”

“Well,” I said, ducking my head, “I didn’t actually introduce her to him. Do you know him?”

“He’s completely unacceptable,” Jim demanded, stamping his foot. It was said with such force, even Tara had to listen. Tara didn’t like what she heard and with a screech of disappointment and a vow to die before she accepted anyone other than Zach, she hopped along the branches to a place she could fly off.”

Jim turned to me. “You…You…Even you should know better than that!”

Even me? What did he mean by even me? And if this bird was so unacceptable, then how did Jim know so much about him? Before I could work my way into anger, he continued.

“How could you?” he asked. “He hangs out at the bushes, Teal! He never goes to classes. He’s never done an hour’s work in his life. He’s lazy and insolent. What kind of life do you expect her to have with him? Oh, Teal. You can’t be that innocent! Do you hate her that much?”

Jim waved his wings in anger.

“I didn’t,” I said, now completely at a loss. I’d never seen Jim so upset, not even in that storm last summer that threatened to blow the nest and all our eggs right out of the tree.

“I didn’t introduce them,” I repeated, trying to pat him with a wing. He flinched and backed away. “He just showed up and flew around and she started, out of the blue, bouncing up into the air with joy and he started bouncing up in the air with joy and he flew up to the top of a tree and started singing to her, and they both completely ignored me.”

Jim stared at me as if he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying. I tried again to pat his back, adding, “I thought the feeders would be a good place to meet other birds, how was I to know Zach would be there and that she would…”

His look froze the words in my beak. Jim was no longer confused. He said in a voice dripping with accusation, “You took her to the feeders? Where there are humans?”

“I thought we could meet some new birds, she’d rejected every one I could think of in the meadow!”

“The feeders?” he repeated. “What were you looking for, a finch? Maybe a sparrow, Teal, maybe a sparrow? Did I have to say it, Teal? Did I have to mention she’s a mockingbird so you should try and find her a mate who’s a mockingbird?”

“I thought…”

“You didn’t think, Teal! It’s obvious there was no thinking going on at all! Mockingbirds don’t hang out at the feeders, Teal, except lazy mockingbirds who can’t be bothered to hunt!”

“Hey!” I said in what could only be called a moment of total insanity. I don’t do well under pressure. “I go there. They put out some nice fruit every now and then. I especially like the peaches.”

“Lazy mockingbirds go there!” Jim stamped his foot again. I could see his opinion of me dropping until I landed right beside that rogue, Zach. “Lazy and worthless birds go there. Like that showoff Zach!”

I decided it would be wiser not to mention Zach was indeed a great flyer, certainly better than either of us. Not knowing what to say, I simply bowed my head, hoping somehow he would take pity on me.

“You have two choices, Teal,” he said, pronouncing my name in a way that made it sound like something too disgusting to eat.

I cocked my head, waiting to hear my choices. I didn’t really expect one of them to be “forget the whole thing and go back to your normal life” but somehow there was still hope.

“You can convince Tara to choose someone better, someone who will make her a good mate, or…”

He stared at me with a look I really didn’t like. I’d do anything to get him to stop looking at me that way. But change Tara’s mind? Convince her of anything? I was doomed, except there was an “or.” I held my breath. That “or” might just save my neck.

“Or you can turn that worthless Zach into a decent mate. I will consider him acceptable only if he can build her a good nest, no not just a good nest, the best, most secure, most comfortable nest in the valley.”

Oh, great, I thought. Doomed. Absolutely doomed. I couldn’t build that nest and neither could Jim and we’d been doing it for years. Could there still be another “or?” No, he had said, two choices and Jim was always very precise in what he said. I was doomed. But maybe…

“And no hiring someone to help him!” he said, as if hearing my next thought before it completely formed. “He has to do it all by himself.”

“Can I give him pointers?” I asked, meekly.

“Yes,” he nodded his head gracefully. “You may give him pointers.”

He was suddenly calm and gracious, whether because he was certain of my success, or whether in response to my obvious capitulation, I wasn’t sure. Somehow, he had brought me from innocent bystander to completely responsible for Tara’s choice, and completely responsible for fixing her choice. I wasn’t sure how he had done it, but the terrible thought occurred to me, maybe he and Tara were related, after all.


Chapter Four

Zach was trying. He’d actually shown up and appeared to be listening all morning while I explained how to pick a good location for a nest. And here he was again, in the afternoon, actually trying to do that very thing.

I still had moments when I secretly hoped he would abandon the idea, after all, building a nest was hard work, and Zach had never been exposed to anything resembling hard work in his life.

I had so many other things I would rather be doing, myself, bugs to chase, songs to compose. I had been working on a particularly creative one when all this started, working the sound of a cell phone ringing into the middle of a couple of choice bits I picked up from a very talented finch.

Then again, when I thought of that look in Jim’s eye and how impossible it had been to convince Tara to accept another bird, I decided the little hope Zach represented was the best hope I had.

It wasn’t that Zach was particularly slow. He seemed bright enough when something struck his interest. But he had paid no attention to anything anyone had said to him before about nest building, and I had to start with the very, very basics.

At first, he had been attracted to the top of the tree for a nest, until I mentioned that when the hawk comes to hunt in the valley, he uses that branch for his looking post.

That made enough of an impression that Zach then picked out a spot across the meadow from the hawk’s branch and at the very bottom of a low tree. I said nothing but waved a wing toward a large bowl of water, left out for the local cats by one of the local farm hands, sitting practically directly under the branch.

We went through the branch too close to the crow’s nests, too close to another mockingbird’s nest, too far from the food supply and too close to the farm sheds where people come. It took some convincing to keep him away from the hummingbird’s nest. He kept saying they were too small to worry about but I’ve had personal experience with them. They may be small but they’re vicious if you’re near their nest.

“Finding a site is complicated!” he complained as if I were deliberately making it difficult.

“You’ll find a good spot,” I said encouragingly, trying to keep myself from mentioning that this was the easy part.

I left him, then, to find a spot on his own. Every bird in the valley had heard about Jim’s challenge and there were eyes on us everywhere. I didn’t know if bets were being taken but there was definitely a lot of interest. I was determined that if, by some miracle, he managed to actually build a nest, I wouldn’t allow anyone to ruin it by telling Jim they’d seen me pick the spot out for him.

I returned a couple of hours later, refreshed from a nice bit of peach and happy with the progress I had made on my song. I would sing it for Jim, if he ever started speaking to me again.

I searched up and down. Panic fought with anger to gain control as I surveyed the meadow, not a sign of Zach to be seen. That stupid, worthless little bird. Jim was right. And now I’d never be able to sing anything for Jim again. He would never, ever forgive me for this!

“Oh, there you are,” Zach said, coming up from behind. “Come see!” he added proudly.

It took a minute to shift from rage to interest but Zach didn’t seem to notice. He was already leading the way into a large flowering bush at the edge of the meadow.

Surprisingly, the space inside was very nice, a wide open space crossed by a couple of sturdy branches, surrounded on all sides by thick foliage and tightly woven branches.

There was more room than I would have expected, and since we had needed to enter at the bottom and hop up several feet through a maze of branches, it looked to be fairly safe from predators. I had to admit the kid had done a good job of picking a site.

Zach stepped aside. Behind him, I saw what could only barely be described as the beginnings of a nest. Without comment, I hopped to the branch where it sat to get a better look.

This nest, if you could call it that, was in the middle of the branch, and as I landed, it bounced, shuddered, and quietly slid off the branch and onto the ground below.

“You ruined my nest!” Zach said, waving his wings in anger.

“It wasn’t attached?” I asked.

“Attached?” he shouted. “You never said anything about attaching it!”

Waving a wing in an effort to calm him, I said, “We haven’t covered that part. We just covered finding a spot.”

Before he could respond with more accusations, I added quickly, “And a very good job you did of finding one.”

Zach stopped, swallowed whatever he was going to say and looked around.

“You think so?” he asked, a little pride starting to show in his voice.

“Yes, I do,” I said, grateful that at least I could be totally honest with him.

Zach looked at the crumpled mess on the ground and sighed.

“This nest building isn’t easy,” he said, more to himself than to me.

“Ah, but think of those beautiful eyes lighting up in joy when she sees what you’ve done,” I said.

Zach shook his head and I could almost hear the debate over whether or not Tara would be worth all this effort.

Quickly, I added, “So, now we need to cover a few necessities, like attaching the nest to the branch.”

Looking pointedly at a rather nice spot where the branch shot off from the main trunk, I said, “I, personally, am fond of crooks where the branch meets the trunk. Usually quite solid, those are.”

By the time we covered methods of securing the nest into the crook, materials best for the stronger, outside of the nest and how to find the best short twigs to fill in, I was ready for another break.

We parted, Zach again excited to see how far he could get before darkness called him off and me actually starting to see a little glimmer of hope. Maybe Jim would be happy enough if he had actually built a nest. The little guy was working at it, he wouldn’t be able to deny that once he saw the nest. Maybe if Tara was satisfied, Jim would accept both Zach and the nest, even if it wasn’t the best in the valley.

Of course, I thought as I flew off toward our family trees, that was a big if. Would Tara, who had never met a bug quite juicy enough, a branch quite secure enough, a creek quite cool enough or a song quite special enough, accept any nest Zach could build, or any nest any bird in the valley could build, for that matter?


Chapter Five

Jim hadn’t asked how the training was going when I arrived back at our favorite tree. We hadn’t discussed anything to do with the nest at all. At least he wasn’t shouting at me. I was afraid that was the best I could expect for a while.

Not that we had much time to talk. We had nestlings and they took all our energy at the best of times. With Jim covering the time I would usually be on the nest, he was too hungry to sit and chat when I returned. He slipped off to feed himself while I saw to feeding the babies.

Fortunately, another row of vines had blossomed out with raspberries and they were just reaching their perfection of ripeness. As I picked them, it occurred to me that even Tara should like these berries.

Once everyone was fed and quiet, he told me of the excitement below the tree early that afternoon, when a cat tried to steal the eggs from a scrub jay’s nest in the bushes. There was a lot of growling and screeching and for a while the outcome was doubtful, but in the end the jay was using bits of fur from the top of the cat’s head for extra cushioning around the eggs. The cat, unhappy and sporting a new bald spot, slunk off grumbling.

He chuckled at the memory and we snuggled up together on our favorite branch, next to our nest. Tara and all the trouble she was causing seemed a long way away.

I dozed happily, listening to the gentle patter of rain drops as they dropped on the leaves above our heads. Warm and dry, it took a while for the realization of what I was hearing to soak in.

I jumped so violently, Jim flew up a couple of feet, shouting, “Who? Where?” His sudden flight disturbed the branches above and a large pool of water fell onto his head with a loud plop.

Seeing only darkness around him, water dripping from his beak, he looked at me in confusion and asked, “What?”

“Rain!” I said, horrified.

“You like rain,” he said, even more confused.

“You…”

I didn’t hear what he was going to ask next. I was already out to the end of the branch and flying off into the night.

“I never mentioned rain!” I shouted back toward him, hoping it would provide some explanation.

I found Zach staring with horrified fascination at his nearly finished nest, completely filled with water, wobbling dangerously back and forth in the crook of the branch.

He looked at me, beak open, eyes wild and then back at the nest. With a sharp crack, the bottom of the nest exploded and the water poured through. We could hear the plop as it hit the ground below.

“This is your fault!”

I tore my eyes from the awful sight to face a now enraged Zach.

“My fault?” I said, surprised to see the anger directed at me.

“You never said anything about rain!” he shouted. “All my work! Ruined!”

I opened my beak to respond but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You don’t want Tara to nest with me! You want me to fail! You deliberately didn’t tell me about the rain!”

“Oh, I think you’ll see how far off base that is,” said Jim softly, working his way up into the space. “Especially when you realize she just left a warm…”

He looked around the space with water dripping loudly from the branches above and continued, “And I might say, dry, spot and risked her life flying across the meadow in the middle of the night, just to see if you were all right.”

“Well, I’m not all right,” Zach said. But Jim’s presence and his calm words were slowly draining the anger out of him.

Jim hopped to the branch that still held the outside rim of what had been Zach’s nest and poked at it as he spoke.

“Of course, if it had been me, I would have mentioned the rain.”

At my gasp, he turned to me.

“Have you no loyalty?” I asked.

“It is an important consideration,” he said.

Zach stretched a wing and shook water off it. I told myself he couldn’t have realized it was flying back right into my face. Surely not.

“But, all my work!” he whined.

Looking at Zach, Jim said, “Well, it might have been a good thing.”

Zach, sitting back in shock, asked, “What do mean by that?”

Pulling a twig from the remains of the nest with a foot and tapping the particularly vicious looking thorn on it with his beak, Jim said, “Did she also forget to mention, no thorns?”

“No!” I said, “I definitely said no thorns!” Looking at a now sheepish Zach, I continued, “I expressly said to find twigs from the Laurel bushes for the inside of the nest.”

Zach looked at his feet and said, barely above a whisper, “They were so far away. I didn’t see why the closer ones wouldn’t work.”

Jim looked around the area and said, “So, you picked a pretty good spot, but I would put the nest over here where these two branches grow off from the main one. Notice it’s still nice and dry. Always good to have a dry spot for the nest.”

Zach gave me a disgusted look and said, “She suggested where the branch meets the trunk.”

Jim’s look sharpened just slightly. I’m sure Zach didn’t see it. But I did and as Zach continued to talk, I backed away. I didn’t think Jim was angry at me, but no sense being too close just in case.

“She said it would be more secure,” Zach whined on. “She didn’t say anything about rain or finding a dry spot or anything like that!”

Jim raised his wings and stepped forward, showing how much larger he was than either Zach or I.

“This is supposed to be your nest!” he said angrily. “Are you stupid? Does someone have to tell you it rains? You never saw it rain before?”

Zach, surprised, stepped back and seemed to shrink into the branch he was standing on.

Jim continued, waving a wing in emphasis as he spoke.

“You couldn’t have looked around and said, gee, it might rain, I should prepare for that? If you think you’re going to nest with our little Tara, then you better not be stupid! She deserves better than stupid!”

I wasn’t sure about the “deserves better” part but I was pretty sure saying anything to that effect at that moment would qualify as stupid.

Zach had raised his head and opened his beak more than once as Jim shouted. He finally stood up to his full height, his stance defiant, his head proud. “I’m not stupid!” he said.

You might have been as disappointed as I was over the lack of originality and indication of deep thought of his answer, but considering how intimidating Jim is when he’s angry, we should give the kid points just for standing up to him. Trust me. I know.

“Well, then,” Jim said, in what I thought was surprising calmness, considering how wild and loud he had been just seconds ago. “You know you weren’t thinking correctly when you built the nest over there.”

Jim held up a wing to stop Zach’s comment.

“No matter what anyone else suggests, you have to learn to think for yourself,” Jim continued.

Looking around, he pushed part of the nest that remained off the branch and onto the ground.

“Now,” he said, ignoring Zach’s gasp. “You know to place it in a dryer place and you know not to use branches with thorns. You’ve been lucky.”

Obviously from the shake of his head and wave of a wing, Zach didn’t agree with the lucky assessment, but again Jim ignored him and went on.

“You could have learned the thorn lesson by sitting on one for hours and hours on end and you could have lost a nest to the rain that held a clutch of eggs.”

Zach looked down at his feet.

“I guess you’re right.” He looked at what remained of the nest and added with a shudder, “At least there were no eggs in it yet.”

“Yes, at least that,” said Jim with a pat on Zach’s back. “So, you’ve got some work ahead of you, but I’d wait until daylight if I were you. It’s a bit dangerous out there in the dark sometimes. We’ll check back on you tomorrow and see how it’s going.”

Jim waited for the nod of agreement from Zach and then turned to me. “Right now,” he said. “I’m going to try and get this crazy bird I’m stuck with back to her own tree without attracting every owl in the country.”

As I was hopping down to work my way out, I heard him say quietly to Zach, “A little trick I learned. When you’re ready to line the inside of the nest, find some of those cigarette butts the people leave laying around all over the place. That white stuff in the end makes a really soft cushion to sit on.

Cigarette butts? That’s where that wonderful stuff comes from? No wonder Zach was always so secretive about it. He hated anything that had to do with people. He didn’t want anything that came from people, not even the fruit they left out for us at the feeders. Ha! I’d have to think of just the right moment to mention I’d heard about the butts.


Chapter Six

The sun had barely broken the surface of the horizon when we heard the joyful sound of Zach, singing as loud as he could from a nearby treetop.

Tara came bounding up the tree branches, more excited than I’d ever seen her.

“He’s finished my nest!” she shouted. “He worked all night, even through the rain!”

It couldn’t possibly be time to rise, I was sure, but Jim nudged me and I stretched my wings.

“How could he be finished so quickly?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Jim said, “But we need something to keep her away while we check it out. I’ve changed my mind about him, he’s trying to do his best. We can’t let him blow it now.”

Oh great. No sleep and now I have to come up with something to keep Tara from rushing off to what couldn’t possibly be a finished nest. But the thought of the disappointment she would feel brought me fully awake. Tara didn’t handle disappointment well, a fact I would rather Zach found out sometime in the future. And if she was too unhappy and refused the nest?

“I’ll send her for some berries to celebrate,” I said without thinking.

“She’s never gone for berries in her life,” Jim said. “Can’t you come up with something better than that. He’s flying over this way!”

“Flowers?” I asked.

“Flowers? For what?” he asked.

“For… For… It’s an old family tradition, don’t you remember? An old family tradition, both birds have to find a special flower to decorate the nest before sitting in it for the first time.”

“Huh?” I forgave Jim. He hadn’t gotten much sleep either.

I nudged him toward Tara, waving a wing. “She’ll believe you. You lie better than I do.”

Still looking somewhat confused, and not moving, he asked, “And why don’t we do this? She’s seen us nesting.”

“Old family nest. Only needs to be done for new ones,” I said quietly as both Tara and Zach landed nearby.

“So, you’ve completed the nest,” Jim said enthusiastically, “How about that.”

“Yeah,” Zach said proudly. “Thanks for the advice, it made it go a lot faster.”

Jim cocked his head, not sure what Zach was saying but before he could ask, I said, “Well, I’m sure you remembered the old family tradition we told you about.”

Zach’s eyes widened and I was afraid for a second he was going to fly off.

“Of course he did,” said Jim, throwing a wing around Zach’s shoulders, most likely, I thought, to prevent an escape. At least Jim was finally on my side in this.

“He wouldn’t forget the flower, would you, old boy?” Jim said. He gave Zach a pat with his other wing, successfully muffling anything Zach was trying to say.

“How about you?” Jim asked Tara.

She had been staring at the strange behavior on the part of Jim and was completely taken aback when he suddenly turned the focus on her.

“Me?” she said, standing up and stepping back. “I didn’t do nothin’”

Hum, now just what had she done to bring such a defense to her mind so quickly? I’d better check the berry stash when this was over.

“Well,” Jim said with a hearty laugh. “Then you’d better get started, hadn’t you?” Don’t overdo it, Jim, I thought. You’re going to make them suspicious.

“Huh?” she asked. Funny, she sounded just like Jim when he was confused.

“The flower,” he said, nudging her toward the edge of the branch. “Better go get that very special flower.”

Both Zach and Tara looked at him as if he had suddenly grown two heads.

“Old family tradition,” I said, bobbing my head. “Surely I mentioned it. Could have slipped my mind.”

“Yeah,” said Jim. “Old family tradition for new nests only. Doesn’t need to be done with old nests, like the one we use. Zach has his, you need to get yours.”

You’re explaining too much, Jim, I thought. They’re going to get suspicious.

But they didn’t. They looked at each other and nodded, like silly old family traditions were old hat to them, as were doddering old birds who forgot to mention them until the last moment.

“She’s always forgetting to mention things,” Zach said, as if reading my mind. He obviously thought we were giving him time to find the flower since the stupid bird had once again forgot to tell him something.

“Tell me about it!” said Tara with a little too much feeling for my liking.

“So, I’d suggest one of those beautiful roses over by the people’s house, those are very special,” I said, trying to maintain a cheerful demeanor. I could let her have it later, I told myself, when she was no longer my responsibility. And that traitor, Zach. See if I ever feel regret for letting him hook himself up with Tara.

Jim nodded and he and I turned to go with Zach back to the nest.

“Aren’t you going to help me?” Tara looked at me with such a helpless, hurt look I almost had second thoughts. Almost.

“Old family tradition rules,” Jim said quickly. “Got to find the flower yourself.”

I nodded and we turned again to leave.

Zach stopped and looked back at us. “But roses have thorns and you said no thorns.”

Jim and I looked at each other. I was all out of old family traditions. If he couldn’t come up with something, we were doomed.

“That’s right,” he said. I could almost see the wheels turning in his brain.

“That’s right, no thorns. So, you’ll have to break the rose off above the thorns, so there won’t be any thorns.”

For a moment I was afraid it wasn’t good enough, but I forgot how badly both Zach and Tara wanted this to work.

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Of course, I knew that.”

“Yeah,” said Zach. “I should have thought of that.”

So, finally, Tara flew off toward the farmhouse and we hurried to the nest.

“You couldn’t have finished it so quickly,” Jim said as we flew.

“Oh, your suggestion was great!” Zach said. “Made it go really fast.”

“My suggestion?” Jim said.

“You know,” Zach said with a nod in my direction. “Your suggestion.”

“Oh,” Jim said, looking at me with a puzzled look. I almost said, it must have something to do with the cigarette butts but I wasn’t supposed to know about that, was I?

I shrugged and turned away.


Chapter Seven

I was the last one to hop up the branches into the nesting space and only got a glimpse of the nest before Jim threw his wings around me and hurried me back down to the ground.

“You’d better go check on Tara,” he said quickly. “Give us some time, as much as you can. It needs some work, yet.”

I let him push me out from under the bush and I took off back toward the farmhouse with no more than a nod of agreement. It was all I could muster at the time without bursting out into hysterical laughter.

That one glimpse of the nest told me all I needed to know. Needed some work? Yeah, it sure did. Out of what looked like a fairly well framed nest, sticking in all directions were a dozen cigarette butts. Not the fluffy white filling from the ends, but the entire, black, grimy butts. No wonder he had finished so quickly.

My next thought was one of panic. How could I ever delay Tara enough to give them time to fix it? Could it be fixed?

Then, with another flash of inspiration, I thought of a plan. I would disapprove of her choice of flower. How long could I drag that out? Long enough. Well, regardless, seeing Tara’s face when someone else didn’t like her choice? That was going to be fun.

I slowed my flight. Tara wasn’t used to disapproval or anyone disagreeing with her. What if she got mad and went home? I’d better be diplomatic, at least. Oh well, it would still be fun, as long as it worked.

“What do you mean it’s too red?” she said.

“Now, don’t get upset,” I said, soothingly. “That’s why I snuck over here. The boys think I’m gathering berries for the celebration. We’d better stop and gather some berries, too, so they won’t get suspicious.”

“I have to get berries, too?!” she asked in horror.

“No, no,” I said gently. “I’m getting the berries. All you have to do is pick out the flower. I’ll even help you break it off, if you want. Your uncle Jim won’t ever know. You know what a stickler he is about these old family traditions.”

From her look, I could tell Tara had no idea how Jim was with old family traditions, in fact this was the first she had ever heard about any.

Before she could think too long on those lines, I quickly continued, “I forgot to mention red is not a good color.”

“I never knew you had so much trouble with your memory,” she said, looking at me as if wondering what could be wrong with me.

“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “This last clutch has been a lot of work and I’m tired.”

That, of course, reminded me that we had flown off in such a hurry we hadn’t fed the babies. Those boys had better get that nest finished quickly so I could get back to them.

“Well, what color should I pick?” she asked, returning to the important thing, her problem.

“Any color,” I said, “just not red.”

With a sigh, she turned and flew back to the garden outside the farmhouse. We discussed roses versus petunias versus hibiscus and settled finally on a very lovely white rose. I helped her break it off, taking great care and much time in order to avoid the thorns.

Then we flew to the raspberry bushes and it took me a while to decide on which of the berries would be good enough. It wasn’t easy. I was torn between rushing to get this over with so I could return to my little ones and taking as long as possible so Jim and Zach could fix the nest.

Finally, I ran out of things to decide and I could see by her impatient hopping from foot to foot that she was reaching the end of her patience. I had to give Zach credit. He had managed to enthrall her to such an extent she had actually been helpful in the berry decisions. Maybe there was a chance he could turn her into a real mate after all.

“You actually expect me to carry this flower all the way back to that nest?” she asked. Okay, so he had his work cut out for him.

“Yes,” I said, bravely I thought, but there was a limit to what I could do and carrying the berries and the flower were beyond that.

She sighed again and was obviously weighing the benefits of continuing over going back to take a nap.

“Zach’s done a lot of work, just for you,” I said. “He’d be really disappointed if you didn’t bring the flower.”

She sighed again, shrugged and picked up the rose and nodded her head.

We flew the distance, not so far normally but with the worry on my mind it seemed an eternity. Landing on the ground near the bush, I hopped over to the opening and waved a wing in welcome.

“After you,” I said. “This is your big moment.”

In truth, I wasn’t being polite. I just couldn’t face the state the nest might be in, not after all I’d been through.

I heard a gasp and held my breath. Was it a isn’t-this-the-most-wonderful-thing-in-the-world gasp or a what-on-earth-do-you-call-that gasp?

“Oh, Zach, it’s beautiful!” she squealed. I let out my breath in relief and hopped up behind her.

There stood Zach, beaming in pride, and a nearly out of breath Jim. They’d been hustling, that was for sure. But their efforts had been worth it. The nest sat securely and beautifully near the center of the space, lined neatly with small leaves and white fluffy softness. There wasn’t a sign of a single cigarette butt anywhere, Jim must have removed the evidence.

It was obvious, Zach and Tara had completely forgotten we were there, so without a word, Jim and I hopped back down to the ground and flew off to our own nest and our own babies.

I could have teased him about the cigarette butts but I never have. It’s really very sweet, when you think about it, that he would be willing to compromise his own dislike of human things to make my nest more comfortable. Kind of romantic, when you think about it. No matter how long I’ve been with him, he still manages to surprise me. Zach and Tara will be very lucky indeed if they can say that someday.

The End

Halloween

The Fourth of July Mad Bomber


“What was that?” Bounds whispered, jumping straight up out of his bed of soft leaves. Leaps, wide awake and staring, just shook his head.

Both rabbits sat very still, watching down the long corridor to the main back door escape hole. The sound had come from that direction, though neither could tell what it was that had wakened them so abruptly.

It was always more frightening to hear something from that direction. Attack, if it came, should come at the main opening, the more public entrance to the family burrow. All the escape holes were well hidden for obvious reasons, especially the main one at the back, which was larger than the others. If the threat was coming from there, it felt as if it left them completely exposed with little hope of escape.

The two stared at each other for a couple of minutes, afraid to move. Finally, Leaps took a deep breath and shook himself.

“Don’t know what it was,” he said in a normal voice. “But it seems to be gone. Let’s get back to sleep. I’ve got a lot….”

His sentence was cut off by the loudest bang either had ever heard. Both recognized the sound as the one that had woke them but this time the sound was much louder. It shook the ground around them, sending dirt from the ceiling down on them.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by chaos. Family members who had been sleeping closer to the escape hatch were running past them, shouting that the tunnel was collapsing. Family members who had been sleeping closer to the main opening were running toward them shouting that they were being attacked.

Leaps grabbed Bounds and held him tightly. Bounds had a tendency to panic in situations like this and Leaps knew if he didn’t hold onto his brother, he’d start running and not stop until he was in another county.

The elders of the family quickly took over. The strongest and best fighters were sent to the front entrance to fend off whoever was trying to break in. A group was sent to the back to assess the damage from the collapse and to make sure no bunny was trapped or hurt. The rest of the family huddled into the deepest of the burrows and waited.

Leaps, still holding Bounds, whispered that he was going to go up to the surface to see what was going on. Bounds nodded. Leaps explained that he wanted Bounds to stay there and help the family. Bounds shook his head.

“I’m going with you,” he said.

Before they could argue the point, another loud bang shook the burrow. It was much further away this time and they heard no cries of further collapse. Without discussing it, the two turned as one and hopped along the corridor toward the main entrance.

They found the entrance well guarded but peaceful. The remains of several broken twigs told them the potential breach had been attempted by a human. Only people stuck sticks down a hole before trying to enter it. Not even the oldest and wisest of the rabbits knew why.

But the guards weren’t paying any attention to the twigs. They were gathered in a circle, staring at something on the floor in the middle. Nudging their way in, Leaps and Bounds saw the object the others were staring at.

Lying on the ground was a very strange thing. It was long and round and bright red. It had a long white cord running from it that had been burned. The cord still smelled of fire. But it wasn’t burning any more, it was just laying there smelling of fire.

“What is it?” Bounds asked. He was answered only by confused looks from the others.

“Never mind,” Leaps said impatiently. “We need to go up there and find out what’s happening.”

The ground shook again, sending a fresh rain of dirt onto the group.

Bounds, distracted from his fear, grumbled as he followed his brother up and out onto the desert floor.

“Whatever it is,” he muttered. “It’s going to take me a week to get my fur clean again.”

The smell hit them instantly. A mixture of human and fire. Neither was a good smell but the two together was deadly and both rabbits froze a moment before shaking themselves and stepping out.

They didn’t speak. Silence was one of their best friends at the moment, they knew. They searched the horizon until they found what they were looking for. There, silhouetted against the night sky, was a huge people carrier and sitting around a campfire in front of it were several people.

The two ducked instinctively, even though there was no way the people could see or hear them from that distance. They were safe enough. The main entrance may not have been hidden as well as the escape hatch, but it was under a large bush and so the two were fairly well protected from view, even close up.

“What are they doing?” Bounds whispered.

“Just sitting there,” Leaps said.

“Sitting there isn’t caving in our escape routes and shaking the ground,” Bounds insisted.

Looking around, Leaps nodded.

“There must be more of them,” he said.

His thought was confirmed by another explosion, not quite as load now that they were above ground, but close-by and followed by laughter.

Bounds jumped and looked around wildly. Leaps grabbed him and drug him to the ground.

Silently, Leaps pointed behind them, in the opposite direction to that of the campers. Both rabbits flattened themselves and froze as boots crunched desert floor in their direction.

The boots stopped just on the other side of the bush. They could only see part of what they identified as one of the small humans. Leaps shuddered. Everyone knew they were the worst.

They could see he was poking a small hole with another twig.

“Nothing here,” he said, softly. Then, standing up and turning toward the campfire, stepping within inches of the bush, he shouted.

“Nothing in most of these holes, Dad. But you should have seen that last anthill! Ants running everywhere! It was really funny!”

One of the people sitting around the fire shouted something back, but neither rabbit understood what he said.

“Ah, Dad,” the kid whined. He started toward the camp, stopped, turned and looked back. Leaps and Bounds, just starting to relax since he apparently hadn’t seen them, froze again.

The kid took a few steps back to the small hole he’d been poking and took something out of his pocket and something else out of another. The rabbits were startled by a sudden flash of bright light, then watched, terrified, as the light dropped into the hole, followed by another loud explosion.

Dirt, pebbles, pieces of cactus and twigs flew everywhere. Leaps grabbed for Bounds but this time he was too late. Through the dust and smoke he could see his brother heading for the hills at full speed.

“Ha! Dad! You see that? I woke up a rabbit!” the kid shouted, laughing.

The people around the campfire laughed and pointed at Bounds as the kid trotted toward them.

Leaps, brushing dirt off his fur for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, sighed and slowly hopped back into the burrow. He’d better warn everyone to stay as far away from any of the openings as they possibly can. That kid was crazy! What could possibly possess someone to do that to them? He shook his head in disgust.

Bounds, finally tiring enough to slow down, realized that once again he was a long way from home and not sure exactly where he was. He’d never understand why he did this to himself! He just reacted without thinking, as he brother was very quick to remind him every chance he got, and ended up getting himself into trouble more often than not.

He stopped and looked around. Not only was he a long ways from the burrow, but it was very dark out and he wasn’t used to finding his way in the dark. Smart bunnies were well tucked into their burrows by dark, something his brother would gladly point out to him, he was sure.

At least he could still see the fire the people were sitting around, though the people were too small to be made out clearly. If he started toward it, he should be able to find the burrow by putting the fire at the same distance and same angle as it was before.

He took a hop toward the light but froze. In the stillness of the night, the sound of his feet hitting the desert floor seemed to vibrate loudly. He looked around nervously. The reason smart bunnies were in their burrows after dark was there were other creatures that roamed the night, creatures who would just love to have a nice rabbit dinner.

“You really shouldn’t be out here on your own at night.” The disembodied voice seemed to come from all directions and Bounds squeaked involuntarily. He spun around helplessly, panicked but not knowing which direction to run.

Laughter brought him up short. Finally able to focus on the sound he whipped around to face the grinning bobcat.

Recognizing the bobcat as his friend, Mason Cummings Boogaloo, the Boogaloo bobcat, his fear melted into anger.

“You scared me!” he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

“I sure did,” Boogaloo said with a laugh. “That was quite a squeak. What on earth are you doing way out here this late at night?” he asked.

All the tension and fear that had been building since he had been so frightfully awakened burst out of Bounds. He was so excited as he tried to tell Boogaloo his story, he hopped up and down, his ears flapping.

“It was terrible!” he said. “A mad bomber! A kid people! Blowing up our home! Blowing up the whole desert! No telling how many bunnies died! I saw him do it! I saw him myself! I saw him drop fire down a hole and the whole world exploded! It was terrible! Rocks flying, it’s amazing I got out alive! The worst thing I’ve ever seen! It was just terrible.”

Boogaloo watched him with a mixture of amusement and concern. Finally, as Bounds wound down, Boogaloo patted him on the back gently with his huge bobcat paw and asked, “Is your brother okay?”

Bounds, out of breath now, just nodded and looked at Boogaloo with pleading eyes.

“Can you help us?” he asked softly.

Boogaloo sat back and looked at the camp fire in the distance. Another blast rocked the ground again.

“Not much we can do about them,” he said. “People!” he hissed in disgust.

“You can scare them! You’re the scariest creature in the desert!” Bounds said.

Boogaloo, his trademark laugh suddenly missing, shook his head.

“People have guns,” he said. “I like you, you know and would like to help your family out, but I’m not taking a bullet for anybody! I’ve seen what they do to bobcats.”

“Oh,” Bounds said, disappointed. But Boogaloo wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. He was suddenly alert and tense and watching.

From the top of a small ridge just out of range of a bobcat leap, two coyotes appeared out of the dark.

“You gonna eat that rabbit or talk to him all night?” The larger of the two asked.

Boogaloo, still sitting quietly, reached out a powerful paw and pulled Bounds to him and turned his head to scan the horizon. Coyotes, like bobcats, usually hunted alone, but if there were two of them for some reason, there could be more.

“What’s mine is mine,” Boogaloo said with a low growl. “None of your business what I do with it.”

The coyote chuckled. “Well, I just thought if conversation was what you were after, we could make a deal. I’ll leave you Tommy here.”

The other coyote looked up at him in surprise.

Chuckling again at his friend’s reaction, he repeated, “I’ll leave you Tommy here and I’ll take that scrawny little rabbit.”

“You can take em.” Whispered Bounds, not any where nearly as afraid as he should have been in the circumstance.

Boogaloo sighed. He really had no interest in taking anyone, let alone a couple of scrappy coyotes but it was touching just how much faith the little rabbit obviously had in him, so he couldn’t abandon him.

He signed again and pointed toward the camp fire.

“We’re discussing how to get rid of them. Any ideas?”

“We were sent out to watch them,” Tommy said. “We got dens, too, you know.”

Boogaloo cocked his head. “You just going to watch them or are you going to do something about it?”

Tommy shook his head and sat solidly. “You were just explaining to your odd friend, there about people and guns,” he said. “Frankie and me don’t like guns.”

“Yeah,” nodded Boogaloo, “Afraid of the guns.”

There was no criticism in his voice, just what he thought was a mutual understanding and dislike of the things. But Frankie took exception to the remark.

“We ain’t afraid of nothin’!” he said, standing as tall as his four skinny little legs would allow. “We’d go give them what for, if we wanted to! Coyotes ain’t afraid of a few people, no way, no how. We’re just making sure they don’t come near our dens, that’s all. But if they did, we’d show them a thing or two, we would!”

They all looked up as another explosion hit, this time on the other side of the campfire, off in the direction the coyotes had come from.

“Looks like the kid has expanded his range,” Boogaloo said.

“Hey!” shouted Tommy. “That’s too close!”

Looking at Frankie, who suddenly didn’t look quite as tough, he said, “Let’s go! Let’s show em like you said!”

“Wait!” said Boogaloo. Frankie looked relieved and held up a paw to stop his friend.

“Let’s hear him out,” he said.

“We need to think about this,” Boogaloo said. “We want to get rid of all of them, not just the kid. And we don’t want them coming back until next year.”

“Until next year!” said Bounds with a thump of his foot. Marching out from behind Boogaloo’s front feet, he demanded, “We don’t want them coming back ever! What do you mean until next year! What’s the matter with you guys? You afraid or something?”

The complete silence brought Bounds up short. The bobcat and the two coyotes were all staring at him and Frankie had a very hungry look in his eye.

Ducking his head and slipping back behind Boogaloo’s leg, he said apologetically, “I mean, we just… it needs to stop… someone’s going to get hurt… I mean… how could anyone… why would even a people…”

“Happens every year,” said Tommy. “That’s why we’ve come out looking. Every year. No body knows why. I mean most of the time the people that come out here are okay. They feed you the best stuff! Always laughing and handing out food. But once a year…” he looked back at the campfire just as another explosion was heard. “Once a year…” he shook his head.

“’Fourth of July’ they call it,” Boogaloo said.

Bounds cocked his head. “What’s that?”

The coyotes and Boogaloo all shrugged in unison.

“Nobody knows,” said Boogaloo. “Not even old Lee, the desert tortoise and he’s been around for fifty bobcat generations.”

Frankie looked at the fire and shook his head. “It’s like they just go crazy! No reason!”

“Okay,” said Boogaloo, patting Bounds. “I’m taking this guy home.”

Frankie stood up and started to speak.

“No arguments.” Boogaloo said, stretching his claws and dropping his voice to a growl.

Even though there were two of them, neither coyote relished the idea of taking on a full grown bobcat. Frankie sat back and shrugged.

He gave Bounds a smile that sent a chill up his spine.

“No sweat,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll meet again sometime.”

Bounds swallowed hard and looked at Boogaloo.

“Can we go now?” he asked timidly.

Boogaloo gave him a pat on his head and looked at the coyotes.

“You two take the group around the campfire. Act crazy.”

“What?” asked Tommy

“Crazy,” said Boogaloo, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “People aren’t that afraid of coyotes.”

He held up a paw to stop the protests. “Not nearly as much as they should be,” he added. “But they’ll freak if they think there’s something wrong with you. People are most afraid of things that have something wrong with them.”

“But what if they have guns?” Frankie asked.

Tommy slapped him across the back and said, “We don’t need no cat to tell us how to handle people and guns! Don’t be daft! We’ll just outsmart them, that’s all.”

The two coyotes took off in one direction and the rabbit and bobcat in another.

Bounds stopped as soon as he knew he was close to home. “This is fine,” he said to Boogaloo. “I want to watch you work.”

Boogaloo laughed and said, “See how it’s done!” as he turned and started toward the spot they had last heard an explosion.

Bounds could hear a commotion at the campsite and watched as the people suddenly jumped up and were scrambling around, covering the fire with dirt, packing their chairs and tables into the people carrier and pointing at a spot in the darkness past where Bounds could see.

He was relieved to see none of them brought out a gun. The coyotes might not be his favorite animals in the world, especially that one with the hungry eyes, but nobody, not even them, deserved to be shot by the people.

“Thanks to the Great Rabbit!” Leaps said as he came up beside his brother. “I had no idea where you went and I’ve been so worried about you.”

Bounds didn’t respond to him. Instead, he pointed to the camp and said, “They’re going! You can hear them calling to the kid. But don’t worry, Boogaloo’s taking care of him! He’ll leave and never come back I bet once Boogaloo takes care of him!”

“Don’t start that again!” Leaps said. The coyotes came into view, limping and winding around each other as if completely crazy.

“Those people are leaving because of those sick coyotes,” Leaps said. “Or are they you’re your friends, too?” he asked sarcastically.

Bounds nodded. “That’s Frankie and Tommy, yeah. Not friends, exactly, at least not my friends, but the acting crazy was Boogaloo’s idea.”

Leaps looked at his brother and shook his head.

“Frankie and Tommy?” he asked, incredulously. “Did you fall again? Why do you run like that? Someday you’ll fall and never get up!”

Bounds waved his brother’s idea away. “I didn’t fall,” he said. “You’ll see. Boogaloo’s taking care of the kid and then he’ll come and you can finally meet him.”

Their attention was drawn again to the campfire. The calls for the kid were more frantic than ever. One of the people started out toward the desert but was driven back by the coyotes.

Boogaloo had no trouble finding the kid. Sneaking up on him was also no trouble. The kid was watching in fascination the sudden chaos at the campfire.

Boogaloo let out a low growl and the kid jumped straight up in the air. Boogaloo would have laughed if it wouldn’t have ruined his vicious cat image. This was just he beginning. He would have the kid begging for mercy in no time.

The kid whipped around and faced Boogaloo. It was at that point that Boogaloo noticed he was holding a stick that was burning on one end. Boogaloo didn’t know what it was or why the kid was holding it but something told him it wasn’t a good thing. He decided to shorten the process and get out of there. He growled again, showing all his teeth, and swiped a paw full of sharp claws in the air.

The kid screamed so loud even the coyotes froze. A wail rose from the campfire and two of the people ran toward them, this time completely ignoring the coyotes.

Boogaloo decided this was a good time to split and turned to run. The kid screamed again, threw the still lit stick at Boogaloo and started to run. Still screaming, he ran past the two people, past the coyotes, past the now smothered campfire and into the people carrier.

The stick exploded. Fortunately, it had been thrown where Boogaloo had been and at the point of explosion he was several feet away. Unfortunately, he was still close enough the blast left him temporarily deaf.

He shook his head, not knowing why suddenly everything had gone so muffled, so quiet. He looked around, saw the coyotes running past him with their jaws flapping. He couldn’t hear a thing they were saying.

Boogaloo didn’t know what had gone wrong, except that crazy bomber had made him deaf, but he knew he’d better get home before anything else stopped working.

Bounds was jumping up and down with joy at the sight of the giant people carrier swerving off into the night. He saw Boogaloo coming toward them and waved and shouted for him to come meet Leaps.

The now deaf Boogaloo bobcat ran past them, not hearing Bounds shouts of joy and Leaps frantic attempts to quiet him. He was so intent on getting home and shaking off this deafness, he didn’t even see them.

Leaps was relieved. It was bad enough that his brother kept running away and falling and hitting his head hard enough he was having delusions. It was bad enough that mad bomber was blowing up their warren. The last thing he needed was his brother in the middle of one of his delusions drawing the attention of bobcat.

Bounds was crushed. He called after Boogaloo but was only answered by a cloud of dust as Boogaloo headed home. Why was Boogaloo ignoring him? It would be weeks before he had a chance to hear Boogaloo’s side and know they were still friends. But that night, he could only think Boogaloo didn’t like him anymore.

He didn’t resist as his brother led him back to the family home. He didn’t protest when his brother pushed him down the hole and told him to get to bed, hoping his head would be better tomorrow.

Leaps stopped at the top and looked again at the now quiet desert. This was no place for bunnies at night. He’d always known that but now, with coyotes, bobcats and mad bombers, he understood why. And someway, somehow, he would have to find a way to convince his brother there was no such thing as a Boogaloo bobcat.

The End

L and B

Leaps and Bounds and the Lovesick Roadrunner


“I don’t think I can go any faster, Leaps!” shouted Bounds in short bursts between gasps for air.

Leaps didn’t answer, he was far too busy trying not to trip on anything while racing across the desert at a rate of speed he was sure was far faster than any rabbit should go. He didn’t look back, either, but could feel the presence of the wild creature chasing them and he was sure it was gaining on them. They had to make it to the gully!

At last, his lungs bursting, Leaps saw the opening and slipped into the gully and streaked around a curve, followed closely by his brother.

The curve was deceptive because on the other side of the hill it cut sharply the opposite direction and then went almost straight up to the top. The sharp cut back had been a surprise to more than one coyote looking for lunch. Reaching the top the brothers would watch the coyote miss the turn, sail off into air, land with a thud and skulk off in embarrassment.

The two dashed to the top, stopped and turned, expecting to see the last of the stranger as it plunged down to the desert floor.

But the wild creature had not followed their mad dash into the ravine. Rather, it had used its short wings to fly up to the top of the hill, hoping to see where the rabbits were heading.

Both Leaps and Bounds stopped within inches of the creature, but were too busy looking down the hill to notice.

“What on earth are you doing?” the creature asked, waving his wings.

Both rabbits whipped their heads around, gasped and stepped back. Bounds had stopped a bit too close to the edge, unfortunately, and felt the ground drop away as he flipped over backwards, hit a cactus and rolled out of control down the hill.

The strange creature watched Bounds roll to a stop with a thud. He turned to Leaps and asked, “You think he hurt himself?”

Leaps stared at the creature. It looked a lot like a bird, now that it had stopped, but in all his life he had never seen a bird that big, and certainly not one that ran instead of flew.

“What manner of creature are you?” he asked, perplexed.

The creature ignored him and dashed with, once again, remarkable speed to the spot Bounds had landed, arriving just as the rabbit shook himself and started to climb back to his feet.

“Are you okay?” he asked, opening his wings in concern.

Seeing the creature appear magically at his side for the second time in minutes was too much for Bounds. He jumped up onto one large, powerful back foot, and held the other out in warning. He thought he shouted, “Stand back, you demon” but it sounded more like, “Ssssssssssack, ack, ute, ute, ute, deeeeeeee, yiiiiii!”

Leaps was slowly following the stranger. The sight of the strange bird-like creature’s face, with the concern for his brother now mingling with puzzlement, removed his fear. And as his fear left him, he replayed the sight of Bounds rolling down the hill in his mind’s eye and without warning sat down beside the strange creature, pointed a wing at Bounds and began to laugh so hard his eyes watered.

The creature stared at the two of them for a moment and slowly took a step back.

“I didn’t realize…” it stammered. “I’m sorry I disturbed…”

Bounds, his dignity hurt enough to replace his fear with annoyance at his brother, lowered his foot and started to brush the dust off his coat. “Don’t mind my stupid brother. He always thinks it’s funny when I almost kill myself!” he said.

“I can understand you,” the stranger said in surprise.

“Of course!” Bounds said, now as annoyed at the stranger as he was at his brother. “What on earth would make you think you couldn’t.”

“You weren’t speaking very clearly a moment ago,” said Leaps, collapsing into another bout of laughter while repeating, “Yi! Yi! Yi” over and over.

“Why were you chasing us!” Bounds demanded of the stranger after giving his brother a withering look.

“Why were you running?” asked the stranger.

“We were running because you were chasing us!” shouted Bounds.

“I was chasing you because you were running!” shouted the stranger.

“Stop!” shouted Leaps with enough authority to draw the attention of both Bounds and the stranger.

“Well?” the stranger asked with a cock of his head.

“We saw you running at us and well…,” said Leaps finding himself at a loss for words, a rare state for him.

“Yeah, you ran at us first!” shouted Bounds.

“Yes,” Leaps shook his head and stepped in front of his brother. “You came at us unexpectedly, at a high rate of speed, I might add. In fact, you were traveling too rapidly for us to identify what type of creature you were. Quite naturally, we were concerned. If we had been given the proper time to draw more rational conclusions, we would have most likely held our ground at least long enough to discover your intentions, but as it was, with an unidentifiable creature rushing headlong towards us, we, well, we decided it best to remove ourselves from its path. After all, the most reasonable conclusion at the time was that you were attacking us.”

Bounds opened his mouth, closed it again, looked at the stranger and then at Leaps, said, “Yeah!” and firmly snapped his mouth shut.

“Attacking you?” the stranger asked, backing up further and bobbing his head in surprise. “Why on earth would I attack you? Who said I was attacking you? Roadrunners don’t attack rabbits!”

He cocked his head again and added, “Well, not rabbits as big as you two, anyway.”

“Roadrunners?” both rabbits said in unison.

“What’s a roadrunner?” asked Bounds cocking his head to study the strange creature.

“So, that’s what you are,” said Leaps, nodding as if he had known all along.

“But you have the appearance of a bird,” he added accusingly.

“Birds have no business running on the ground!” demanded Bounds.

“I am a bird!” The roadrunner said impatiently. As he spoke he began to pace rapidly in a circle around the two, requiring them to turn around quickly in order to keep him in their sight.

“I am a bird,” he repeated. “Just because I prefer running to flying doesn’t mean I’m not a bird. You sound just like those stupid crows over where I live! Always laughing at us running on the ground. I’m still a bird!”

“Can we find a nice place out of the sun to talk about this?” asked Bounds, stumbling as he turned. “I’ve had a bad fall and my head is beginning to spin.”

“Oh, of course,” said the roadrunner. “How thoughtless of me!” He stopped his pacing and opened a wing to fold protectively around a wide-eyed Bounds. Before either rabbit could react, he had ushered them both into the shelter of a large bush and settled down under it’s thick branches.

“That’s better!” he announced. The rabbits looked at each other.

“Do you always move so… so fast?” asked Bounds.

“I agree,” said Leaps. “I too find your movements very precipitate.”

The roadrunner cocked his head, studied Leaps for a moment and sat back.

“Oh, sorry, I guess if you’re not used to roadrunners it might… I was in a hurry… I thought… Do you always talk like that?”

“We never saw a roadrunner before,” Bounds said, once again more curious than afraid. “Do you have a name?”

“Talk like what?” asked Leaps.

“Oh, sorry, yes, I should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? I’m Arti. I’m a roadrunner from over past that high ridge of rock.”

“We’re brown and white rabbits from well, right here!” Bounds said proudly.

“My name is Leaps,” said his brother sternly. “My brother’s name is Bounds. We are white and brown rabbits,” he added with strong emphasis on the white.

“Brown and white rabbits, Mom clearly said, brown and white,” insisted Bounds.

“Our mother, though a dear, isn’t always exacting in her speech,” countered his brother. “We are white and brown rabbits! You have only to look at your own fur to see the predominance of white!”

Arti suddenly brightened and said, “Oh, I get it, rabbits, Leaps and Bounds. Very funny!”

The rabbits looked at each other in puzzlement.

“What’s funny?” asked Bounds.

“Oh,” said the roadrunner uncertainly. “Oh… well… nothing I guess.”

“You’re kinda strange for a roadrunner,” said Bounds. “Besides running when you should be flying, I mean.”

“I’m not supposed to fly!” said Arti with an exasperated sigh.

Leaps turned on his brother. “How would you know what was strange for a roadrunner? You have never met one before, nor, I would guess, ever heard of one before.”

“You never heard of him, either!” said Bounds.

His brother shook his head. “I would think you would at least have learned enough from our mother not to insult a visitor from over the ridge. What must he think of us?”

“I…” Arti started but Bounds turned on Leaps and shouted, “You’re the one who insulted him. You’re the one who said he was a bird! Don’t blame me! You blame me for everything.”

“I’m not insulted. I am a bird,” Arti insisted.

Bounds turned to Leaps and the two rabbits were now nose to nose, with Bounds’ back foot tapping loudly on the ground.

“I blame you,” Leaps said quietly, “because it’s your fault. I didn’t insult him, you just heard him say so.”

“I didn’t either!” demanded Bounds.

With a deep breath, Leaps said, “Regardless, he is our guest, this is our part of the desert and he’s new here. He may need help. That may be why he was running up to us.”

Turning his back on a still angry Bounds, he said to Arti, “I’m sorry if we misinterpreted your intentions. Is there something we can do for you?”

“Why, yes there is, thank you for asking,” said Arti fluffing his feathers in pleasure. “I’m looking for something really special, you see, and I was hoping you could help me find it.”

“Something really special?” Bounds asked excitedly. “Like fresh sprouts when they first peak about the soil?”

Bounds looked away, lost in dreams of fresh sprouts.

Arti looked at Leaps and shook his head. “Ah… Not exactly,” he said hesitantly.

“Don’t worry,” said Leaps, leading Arti back out on the desert floor. “My brother and I know every inch of this desert. You ask for it, we’ll find it.”

Looking much happier, Arti thanked him.

“You see,” he said. “I want to find something especially good. I came a long way because there must be something over here that is difficult to find on my side of the ridge.”

“Did you run out of food over there?” Bounds looked at the ridge as if visualizing hoards of starving animals streaming over it.

“Oh, no,” Arti said. “We have plenty of food. But there are lots of roadrunners and well… I sort of… well…”

Bounds sat back and said, his eyes wide with excitement, “Oh! You have some horrible disease and only a special kind of berry will cure it,” he said.

Leaps punched his brother on the shoulder. “I told you to stay away from those squirrels! They make that stuff up just to get you excited!”

Arti laughed. “No, he said. “Not exactly a disease even though sometimes it feels like that.” He looked away and said with a sigh, “I’ve found the most wonderful, sweet, Margarita. That’s her name, Margarita. Isn’t it a beautiful name?”

The two rabbits looked at each other. It had not occurred to them before that there might be something wrong with this strange bird.

Arti turned back to them abruptly and said with great passion, “I must find her something special, something so wonderful she will never look at any guy but me!”

The two rabbits backed away.

Arti took a deep breath and asked, “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

The brothers looked at each other again.

“I don’t think so,” said Bounds uncertainly.

“We’re too young!” said Leaps, bopping his brother on his head.

“Well,” said Arti. “I am. And she’s so perfect it hurts. The only way I can think of to get her to pick me is to give her something no one else could find.”

“Do you have any idea of the sort of thing you are looking for?” asked Leaps.

“Well, I only know about the things we usually find on my side of the ridge, you know, an especially juicy lizard, or maybe a snake.”

“Snake!” the two rabbits said in alarm.

“Hey!” shouted Arti excitedly. “You got any rattlesnakes around here? That would be impressive.”

Bounds leaped into his brothers arms and the two cowered together. “Rattlesnakes!” they shouted, searching the ground for any sign of the deadly creatures.

“Yeah,” said Arti, apparently noticing nothing. “It’s not easy to catch them, but we do it now and then. A nice big rattlesnake should be just the ticket.”

Leaps dropped his brother with a thud. Starting to walk away he said, “I’m sorry we can’t help you. We want nothing to do with rattlesnakes! Nobody said anything about looking for rattlesnakes! We try and stay as far away from rattlesnakes as possible!”

Bounds picked himself up from the ground and followed his brother, brushing himself off as he went.

“Wait for me!” he said, looking back at Arti. “Don’t leave me here with some crazy bird who wants to see rattlesnakes!”

“I’m sorry,” said Arti, waving his wings as he followed them. “I didn’t mean to make you mad! Please! Help me find something! I promise not to look for rattlesnakes!”

Leaps stopped and turned. Bounds was still watching the roadrunner suspiciously and ran into his brother, knocking them both to the ground.

“This is not a good day!” Bounds said. “I really am getting a headache!”

“Well, if you’d watch where you’re going…” his brother said with disgust.

“Ouch!” Bounds said, turning in a circle, trying to see his back. “Something’s biting me!”

“Stop moving!” Leaps said as he followed in the circle. “It’s just a thorn, here let me pull it out.”

Leaps grabbed the thorn and pulled. He patted Bounds on the back and said, “All better!”

“Ouch!” cried Bounds. “All you did was break it off! Now what am I going to do!”

“Well, if you didn’t have such thick fur…” Leaps said accusingly.

“Please, allow me,” said Arti. Before either could protest, he grabbed Bounds by the back with a powerful foot. Bounds screamed as Arti flung him to the ground and dug his long sharp beak into the fur.

“Now, just a moment...” Leaps said, waving a paw nervously.

The look of horror on Bounds’ face turned to one of surprise and then relief as the roadrunner let him go and stepped back.

“You fixed it!” he said happily.

“Good!” Arti said. “Thorns are no fun!”

With a deep sigh, Leaps said, “I guess we can’t refuse to help you, now.”

Bounds bounced up and down beside him, saying, “Yeah, he’s a nice guy after all. I like him. Let’s find him something really, really, good. Not a rattlesnake, though, he said it’s okay not to find a rattlesnake. How about a lizard, didn’t he say a lizard?”

“Do you know any place to find a lizard?” Leaps asked.

Bounds stopped, deflated. “I’ve never thought about it before. Why would I look for a lizard?”

Leaps turned to Arti and said, “Do you like berries? We know were there is a hidden patch of berries that are just now getting perfectly ripe.”

“Yeah,” said Bounds excitedly. “There’s some great dandelion shoots just peaking up out of the soil there, too.”

“Well…” Arti said. “I don’t know…”

His hesitation was ignored by the two rabbits, who were suddenly carried away with enthusiasm. They each grabbed a wing and practically dragged the reluctant roadrunner into another deep ravine.

“Wait!” Arti said, shaking off his captors. “I can run by myself, thank you.”

Shaking himself with dignity, he added, “Okay, I’ll follow you. Fresh shoots might attract something good, you never know.”

He followed the two down the narrow ravine until they disappeared into what appeared to be a hole in a very large rock wall towering over the path.

Arti stopped. Bounds appeared again in the hole and said, “It’s right through here! Come on! You’re going to love it!” He disappeared back into the hole.

Arti stood there, staring at the huge boulders surrounding the area.

This time it was Leaps who appeared in the hole.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Roadrunners don’t go into rocks,” Arti said nervously.

“But that’s were the good stuff is!” protested Leaps. “It’s just a small tunnel, no big deal,” he added encouragingly. “It’s not long. It’s not dark.”

Turning, Arti said, “I’ll go around.”

“You can’t!” shouted Leaps, stopping him in his tracks. “There’s no other opening. That’s why it’s secret,” he added.

Looking at the tall rocks above his head, Arti said. “I’ll fly over.”

Leaps came out of the hole, pointed to the unbroken wall of rock rising high into the air.

“Can you fly that high?” he asked.

Arti shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh.

“Look,” said Leaps with impatience. “It would be easier to go through the tunnel. My brother will lead you.” Bounds appeared beside him nodding agreement.

“And I’ll follow to make sure you don’t have any trouble. There’s plenty of room on the other side.”

Reluctantly, Arti stepped into the opening. “If she only knew what I do for her…” he muttered.

Luckily for him, the opening at the other end was immediately apparent. He concentrated on that, trying not to notice the rock over his head.

Even Arti had to admit the meadow they stepped out into was beautiful. It was small and completely surrounded by tall stone walls but it was full of colorful flowers. Along one wall berry vines, loaded with ripe fruit, cascaded from cracks in the walls.

“There!” said Bounds as he hopped happily toward one of the vines. Leaps and Arti followed him. The vine climbed down the rock face and over a large boulder at its base. On the other side of the boulder, a small space was filled with fresh soil and out of that soil peaked tiny, green shoots.

Bounds stopped abruptly as he reached the boulder.

“Arg!” he said, disappointment loud in his voice. “What’s that?”

Leaps took a step back when he saw what Bounds was looking at. Sitting on top of the boulder, and blocking the path to the shoots, was a large bright green beetle, a very, very large bright green beetle with vicious looking pinchers that looked long enough to grip a small rabbit’s leg without trouble.

“I don’t know,” said Leaps. “But I’m not going near it!”

Turning to Arti, Bounds said, “Sorry, but we’ll figure out something.” Waving his front foot toward the shoots, he said, “Isn’t it the most wonderful thing you ever saw?”

“It certainly is!” said Arti, awe in his voice. “I can’t thank you enough! Margarita will be so thrilled!”

“I knew you wouldn’t be disappointed,” said Leaps. “This is the best berry patch in the entire desert. And almost nobody knows about it!”

“This is great!” said Arti excitedly. “It’s perfect!”

“If we could just figure out how to get past that…” Bounds’ voice trailed off as the roadrunner unexpectedly dashed by the two rabbits, grabbed the beetle easily in his beak and dashed back toward the entrance.

“Thmks!” They heard his muffled cry as he waved the beetle like a trophy and dashed back through the tunnel.

Leaps and Bounds looked at each other in surprise.

Shaking his head, Bounds said, “I don’t care what you say, that’s one strange roadrunner,” he said.

The End






Bounds and the Garrulous Bobcat

Bounds was enjoying the light breeze blowing across the high plateau. It was a warm day and all the other rabbits were safely tucked under a bush or in the shade of a log. But Bounds liked the warmth of the sun and he liked to be out and about when there wasn’t another creature stirring.

Since most of time being a bunny was a hazardous occupation, after all, almost all predators put “rabbit” at the top of their favorite food list, it was nice to be alone and to know that even the most desperate coyote was currently hunting shade not food.

He ran as hard as he could, defying his mom’s admonition to be slow and careful. The plateau wasn’t particularly wide and the drop at the edge was sharp and deep. But the day was beautiful and Bounds had filled up on the freshest, sweetest dandelions he’d had in a long time. Making a wide arch, he saw himself in his mind’s eye, gracefully curving around and racing back, his ears flying behind him.

Maybe that’s exactly what he would have done, but he tripped. The first thought that went through his head as he felt himself start to roll across the ground and through a thorny bush was, why me? Why am I always such a klutz? The second thought was that he sure hoped he wasn’t rolling, wildly and completely out of control, toward the edge of the cliff.

He tried to grab a cactus as he flew by but the thorny branch, so quick to grab a paw if carelessly brushed, seemed to shrink from him. He tried to throw his feet out to stop the rolling and succeeded for one second of pure exhilaration. But a second later he realized the ground was no longer under him, no cactus were flying by. He was off the cliff and falling.

It all happened so fast, he never had time to be afraid. The ground disappeared, he realized he was falling and then suddenly he was stopped, sitting comfortably on a ledge not far from the top, in the arms of a large bobcat.

“Whew,” he said to himself, “that was …”

His eyes widened as he looked into the eyes of the bobcat.

“Oh, my!” was all he could get out. “Oh, my, oh, my!”

The bobcat grinned what looked to Bounds to be an evil grin, showing magnificently sharp teeth.

“Don’t squirm!” he ordered. “I might drop you!”

Bounds looked down. They were on the ledge, but the edge was very close and the ground beyond it was a very long way away.

Trying to decide whether it would be better to fall to his death from the ledge or be eaten by a bobcat took Bounds breath away. But before he could decide, the cat grabbed him by the back of the neck, effectively preventing any movement by him, and started to slowly make his way down the cliff.

Bounds took one look at the shear drop and the tiny slices in the rock the cat was using as footholds and squeezed his eyes shut the rest of the way. One thing he did know. Whether he was going to fall to his death or be eaten, he didn’t want to see it coming.

At long last, he felt himself being unceremoniously dumped onto the ground. Unfortunately, he still had his eyes squeezed shut and didn’t see the ground coming in time to get his head out of the way and so he landed with a thud on his head.

He slowly opened his eyes, expecting to see those great, sharp teeth closing on his head. But no, to his surprise, the bobcat was a few feet away, drinking from a small stream.

“Ow!” he said, belatedly feeling the lump on his head.

The bobcat looked up at him. “Sorry, you were getting heavy and I was thirsty,” he asked.

“I… You were going to…” Bounds looked at the bobcat and then up the steep cliff and back to the bobcat. He was completely confused. This wasn’t happening at all the way he expected.

“Eat you?” the bobcat finished his sentence for him, smiling. “You going to wait around to find out?”

Bounds stared at the bobcat, even more confused now, shook his head and turned to run away. He stopped at what he thought was just beyond where the cat could leap and turned back to him.

“But why didn’t you eat me?” he asked.

The bobcat laughed. “Insulted?” he asked.

Bounds just stared at him, speechless.

Still watching Bounds, the cat expertly, and with a movement so fast Bounds wasn’t sure he actually saw it, dipped a paw into the stream and brought up a small fish.

“I only eat fish,” he said simply, popping the fish into his mouth as he spoke

Bounds cocked his head. “But you’ve been eating rabbits,” he insisted. “Why not me?”

The cat laughed again. “You are an interesting dude, aren’t you? Well, let me introduce myself. I’m Mason Cummings Boogaloo, the Boogaloo Bobcat. You can call me Boogaloo, if you like, all my friends do. Now, I don’t get much chance to chat with rabbits, all of them making the same assumption you did and running away before I can get a word in, but since you seem to be willing to stay a bit, I’d be glad to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh,” Bounds said, surprised yet again by this strange cat. “I’m Bounds. My brother Leaps and I usually hang out together but he thought it was too hot to play so he’s sleeping under a bush.”

“Great!” said Boogaloo enthusiastically. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I’ll be glad to meet your brother some day, too.”

“As long as you don’t eat him,” Bounds said with a tentative duck of his head.

Boogaloo shook his head again. “Now, friend, you must believe me that I don’t eat rabbits, since you’re still standing there.”

Looking around as if suddenly nervous, Bounds continued, “But that’s just it. You have been eating rabbits. For a couple of weeks. I mean, we’ve seen you, and we’ve seen… well, it’s not pleasant, you know. Well, maybe you don’t know, but anyway, I’ve seen you carry off rabbits and I’ve always assumed you ate them but I mean…”

Losing his way in the confusion of ideas and mental pictures, Bounds stopped talking and looked at the bobcat.

“You must be mistaking me for another bobcat,” Boogaloo said with a wave of his paw.

“Oh,” Bounds said. It hadn’t occurred to him that there would be more than one, or that bobcats might be different. All his life, bobcats, like coyotes and owls and hawks, were just things to avoid, not anything to think about.

“Maybe that’s it!” Bounds said gratefully, “it was another bobcat.”

Boogaloo nodded and smiled. “So, what do you eat? I mean, not bobcats, I hope.”

The cat laughed harder at the shocked look on the rabbit’s face and Bounds realized he was kidding.

“No,” he said, shuffling his feet, “we like grass and flowers and dandelions, I especially like dandelions.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Bounds,” said Boogaloo. “Maybe we can share a lunch of dandelions some day.”

“You like dandelions?” Bounds asked.

Boogaloo cocked his head. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Never tried them. But who knows?”

Bounds laughed and added shyly. “Thanks for catching me.”

“No sweat, kid,” said Boogaloo. “Glad I happened to be sunning on that ledge when you decided to jump over the edge.”

Bounds started to explain about not actually jumping over the ledge and tripping and running in the sun like his mom told him not to, but thought perhaps he had pushed his luck as far as he could.

“Well, thanks,” he repeated and then he pointed to a small opening through a bunch of cacti. “Do you know if you can get to the cholla ravine by cutting through there?” Looking up the steep cliff, he added, “I hate to think of climbing all the way back up.”

“I’m not carrying you,” the bobcat said with another laugh. “You’re not the smallest rabbit in the world, you know.” Following Bound’s paw, he added, “Yeah, just through there. Follow around to the…”

Suddenly, the bobcat was practically on top of Bounds. So much for keeping out of range of his leap, Bounds thought ruefully.

“Cholla ravine?” he practically shouted. “You live in the cholla ravine? The one with all the cholla cacti, the one that dead ends at the foot of the other end of this plateau? That cholla ravine?”

Taking a step backwards and tucking his head as far down into his shoulder blades as he could, Bounds nodded his head, fear taking away breath to speak.

Grabbing Bounds’ shoulder and shaking him roughly, the cat continued, “And you say a bobcat’s been eating rabbits over there?”

Bounds nodded weakly.

“Over there in Cholla ravine?” the cat insisted.

“Yes!” Bounds squeaked out. By this time sharp claws were peeking out from the end of each toe of the cat’s paw.

Hearing the fear in Bounds’ voice, the cat let him go and brushed absently at the rabbit’s back.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just…” Pacing in a circle around the still terrified rabbit, Boogaloo started muttering to himself, his voice growing louder and deeper until Bounds couldn’t hear much beyond an angry growl.

“That’s my territory! I don’t eat rabbits, but still, all the same, I mean, those are my rabbits. No body comes into my territory and eats my rabbits!”

Suddenly, Boogaloo stopped pacing and stopped growling. With a determined swipe of his powerful paw, he pushed Bounds toward the opening in the cacti.

“Let’s go,” he demanded. “Show me where that lowdown, cheatin’, stealin’ snake in the grass has been hunting your family.”

Bounds resisted the push and asked with alarm, “What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do?” the cat shouted. “I’m Mason Cummings Boogaloo! What do you think I’m going to do! I’m going to show that dirty, no-good, trespassin’ bobcat the error of his ways. I’ll teach him a thing or two about sneaking into my territory!”

Bounds shook his head as if trying to clear it, opened his mouth, closed it and with a long look into the eyes of the now extremely fierce looking cat, lowered his head and marched down the path like a rabbit going to slaughter.

On the way, he tried to figure out how he would explain to his brother, if he lived long enough to see his brother again, that he not only had managed to get himself caught by a bobcat, he was bringing said bobcat back home to take his pick of the family.

They were about halfway to the opening of the ravine when all that had happened that day slowly sorted itself out in Bounds’ brain. The process wasn’t a fast one where Bounds was concerned normally, and had been hampered that day by fear and the headache landing on his head had given him.

Bounds stopped so abruptly Boogaloo almost fell trying not to run over him.

“You’re going to stop the other bobcat?” Bounds asked.

Boogaloo nodded his head and said, “I’m going to take that lousy rabbit-stealing son of a house cat and turn his fur wrong side out!”

Bounds stared at him a minute while he deciphered that and said, “You’re going to make him stop eating my family?”

Boogaloo opened his mouth, shut it again and sighed. “Yes,” he said.

Bounds stood tall and perked his ears up. “Great!” he said. “Let’s go!”

Bounds ran most of the rest of the way. Just as they reached the opening to the ravine, Boogaloo grabbed Bounds and whispered, “I can smell him. Go on home and tell your family their bobcat fears are over.”

With one powerful bound, Boogaloo was out of sight. Bounds stood staring for a long time, trying to figure out how the bobcat had disappeared so completely so quickly.

With a loud hiss and a deep growl, both bobcats flew around a boulder and plunged right for Bounds. He ducked as the first bobcat took a swipe at his head. Boogaloo, right on his tail, swatted the other bobcat away from Bounds.

Boogaloo gave Bounds a wink and chased the other bobcat off into the desert.

“Bounds!” Leaps shouted. He grabbed his brother while still running and tried to hug him. His momentum pulled both to the ground and they rolled over twice before stopping. Leaps grabbed his brother again.

“I thought you were a gonner!” he shouted. “I thought they had you!”

“Oh, no,” said Bounds. “That’s Mason Cummings Boogaloo, he’s my friend.”

Leaps took a step back. “Are you all right?” he asked, worry replacing the joy in his voice.

Before Bounds could reply, Leaps grabbed his brother’s head and started pulling the fur aside.

“What happened to your head?” he demanded. “You’re hurt!”

“It’s okay,” Bounds said, pulling away. “I fell off the cliff, but Boogaloo rescued me. He was thirsty so when he put me down I hit my head. It’s no big deal.”

Leaps studied his brother closely, examined the knot on his head again and sighed.

“You look okay,” he said nodding.

“I’m fine,” Bounds said. “Boogaloo is getting rid of that mean bobcat who was…”

Patting his brother’s shoulder, Leaps shushed him. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’ve just had a scare, that’s all.”

“But I’m fine!” Bounds insisted.

“I know, I know,” his brother said. “I just think it would be better if we get you in out of the sun.”

Looking at the desert where the two bobcats disappeared, he added quietly, “Soon. We need to get you out of the sun soon.”

As he led his brother away toward the family dens, he added quietly, “I think it would be better if you didn’t mention that Mason Cummings guy to anyone else.”

He silenced Bounds’ protest with a raised foot.

“You know how mom worries,” he said, leading a now silent Bounds away.

The End





Leaps and Bounds and the Attack of the Gila Monster


Chapter One

“Oh, my; oh, my; oh, my,” repeated Bounds over and over, his feet frozen to the ground, his eyes fixed on the flickering tongue of the monster bearing down on him.

Leaps, realizing his brother wasn’t going to move on his own, hopped to his side, pushed him roughly and whispered, “Move, you dummy!”

Once started, Bounds leapt out of the way and madly raced across the desert, abruptly changing directions back and forth in the hope of shaking off his pursuer. Leaps followed his brother more slowly, turning to watch the monster behind him.

After a few hops, he realized the monster wasn’t following them at all. It was marching with great determination exactly along the path it had been taking originally. It was as if the monster had no interest in the two rabbits at all!

Leaps stopped, watching the huge lizard-like thing disappear behind a large boulder. Turning back to his brother, he saw Bounds fade off into the distance, still running madly. Oh well, his brother would be easy to find. After that much exertion, he’d be good and hungry and once he finally realized he wasn’t being chased, would head for the grasses along the dry creek bed.

“What was that?” he asked himself, shaking his head. All his rabbit life, he’d never seen a lizard that big. It must have been at least twice his size and brightly colored. It stood out on the landscape but it stomped along with no regard to anything around it, well, like there was nothing in the whole valley it was afraid of. He shivered. That was scarier than its size.

And that tongue, flickering in and out like he could just taste a nice rabbit lunch. Ugh! Leaps shivered again and stomped his foot. He had to get over this or he would end up running wildly across the desert like his brother. One of them had to keep his head!

Slowly, he hopped along the edge of one of the ridges common in the valley. He tried to casually walk along like nothing was the matter but he kept turning back to make sure the monster hadn’t followed him after all and jumped at the slightest sound.

He met up with Bounds near the dry creek bed, as he expected to. Bounds was nibbling along the edge but he wasn’t getting much since his head was popping up to look over his shoulder every few seconds.

“I’ll watch, you eat,” Leaps said wearily as he approached. Bounds leapt straight up into the air, started to flee and froze in mid-stride, one back foot up in the air, one down.

“It’s okay,” Leaps said, laughing. “It’s just me.”

Relaxing, Bounds said, “Oh, good. For a minute…”

Turning to look back toward the spot where he had seen the monster, he continued, “I think I lost him. I did some pretty fancy footwork back there, bound to have confused any…”

“He wasn’t chasing you,” Leaps said.

“Sure he was!” said Bounds, annoyed. “He was coming right at me!”

“He didn’t even look at you when you ran,” said Leaps.

“But…” Bounds looked back again, but this time he looked more puzzled than afraid.

“Besides,” said Leaps dismissively. “He wasn’t moving that fast if you really looked at him. You could have outrun him easy. No need for all that fancy footwork.”

Bounds picked up his right back foot and examined it. “I think I may have hurt something,” he said.

“And all for nothing!” his brother said with a laugh.

Letting his foot drop to the ground in disgust, Bounds gave his brother a dark look and went back to eating the grass.

“I’m still hungry,” he said grumpily.

“Oh, don’t sulk,” said Leaps. “We could go…”

He was interrupted by a commotion suddenly arising not far from them. It sounded like a bird fight, wings flapping, scratching and scraping and a couple of loud wails.

Both rabbits turned to run, figuring that any trouble, even between birds, couldn’t bode well for them. But the commotion reached them before they took more than a step. It was actually several birds, not just two. And they weren’t fighting, they were running along the ground, some of them crying, some shouting in anger.

Leaps immediately recognized them as Roadrunners, having met one before.

“Did you see it?” they asked excitedly.

“The monster?” Bounds asked.

The group stopped as one in front of the two rabbits.

“You did see it!” they exclaimed. “Where did it go?”

“Why?” asked Bounds. “What happened?”

“That way,” said Leaps. “But you’re not going to go after it, are you?”

“We’ll get him! Tell us what he looks like, so we’ll recognize him when we find him!”

Bounds bounced up and down in his excitement. “Don’t go after him! He’s a monster! He had red, glowing eyes and fire shot out of his mouth and he was huge! I’ve never seen anything so huge!”

The Roadrunners looked at each other in uncertainty and not a little fear.

Leaps asked, before his brother could exaggerate any more, “If you haven’t seen him, why are you chasing him and how do you know it’s him you’re after?”

Confusion replaced uncertainty on the faces of the roadrunners. One shook her head and stepped forward.

“All we know is somebody just went through our nests,” she said. “Our community nests,” she added waving a wing to include all of the birds. “He smashed everything, and he ate our eggs. My eggs! My poor, poor, little babies!” her voice rose into a wail and another bird stepped forward to comfort her.

“No!” she said, angrily, pushing him away. “I’m okay! I just want to find whoever did this and peck his eyes out!”

“But he’s huge!” Bounds said.

“We know that!” said another of the birds. “Even if we’ve never seen him. From what we hear not many who see him live to tell about it!”

Bounds gave his brother an “I told you so!” look.

“He wasn’t chasing you,” Leaps insisted.

“Don’t think a big rabbit like you is too fast for him,” said one of the birds. “He’s sneaky, catch you nappin’! Worse yet, catch your little ones when you’re not around! Over in the back canyon, one of these monsters came through and wiped out a whole family of rabbits. Ate every youngun’ they had! Nearly killed the parents to see it. I hear they up and moved up into the hills to get away from the thing.”

“You said it didn’t eat rabbits!” Bounds accused his brother.

“I didn’t either,” said Leaps. “I said it wasn’t chasing you.” Turning to the birds he pointed off towards the boulder the monster had disappeared around.

“He went that direction,” he said and then froze with his paw still pointing.

“That direction,” he repeated, more softly now. Looking at Bounds, he said, “Towards our ravine. Towards our family. Towards our baby brothers and sisters!”

By the end, he was shouting and before the last words had left his mouth, both rabbits were running as fast as possible towards the boulder, with the frantic roadrunners trying to catch up.

The rabbits had put quite a bit of distance between themselves and the roadrunners by the time they reached the boulder, so the birds didn’t see them race full speed around the boulder and plow into the Gila Monster sunning himself on a flat rock.

Both rabbits bounced off the large lizard, flipped backwards, painfully slammed into the boulder and dropped to the ground, dazed. The Gila Monster took a slow step backwards and hissed.

The roadrunners arrived, some skidding into the rabbits, and some flying up and over the monster. The monster hissed, growled a sharp, loud bark, and hissed even more loudly.

Rabbits and birds flew in all directions. The monster whirled his head to watch them all scatter and then turned and marched off toward the ravines cutting into the hillside nearby.

Leaps stopped a few feet from where the monster had been, remembering belatedly that he still believed he could outrun the creature if it came down to it. A couple of birds flew a short distance to stand beside him.

“We’ve got to be strong!” the mother bird said. “We’ve got to attack him!”

Leaps just looked at her. He had no intention of attacking anything that looked and sounded like that. It didn’t actually have red, glowing eyes, but to Leaps the dark, compassionless, murderous look he had seen was more frightening. And he had to admit that that flickering tongue looked a lot more like it was shooting fire when it was so close and so loud!

Off in the distance, Bounds appeared atop a rock outcropping that Leaps recognized. It should have taken him at least twice that long to go that distance. Leaps shook his head and turned back to the birds, now in full war cry. He followed slowly as they chased after the beast.

Leaps wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved when the creature ducked into a hole in the ground and disappeared from view before the birds could reach him. They paced the ground near the hole trying to figure a way to get at the beast.

In the end, a very sad and deflated group of roadrunners left to return to the remnants of their nests. Even the mother bird recognized the futility and danger of following the monster down into the ground.

Leaps stared at the hole in the ground for a long time and then slowly turned and started toward home. Bounds came up beside him just before he turned down the path into the ravine that led to the family burrows.

A wisecrack about the speed with which Bounds had run away died away when he turned and looked at his brother. Poor Bounds was barely keeping up, and he was limping. His fur was ruffled and covered with burs and twigs. His ears drooped and his eyes were dark and lifeless.

Leaps stopped and said, gently, “He’s not going anywhere for a while, I bet. Let’s get you some food before we go home.”

Bounds looked at him weakly but didn’t answer. Leaps slowly lead him to one of their favorite patches of wild flowers and stood guard while Bounds slowly chewed a few stalks.

Leaps looked around after a bit and his brother was cleaning his coat. Leaps thought that was a good sign and turned back to watch the spot where the monster had disappeared. When he looked around again, Bounds was curled in a ball in the middle of the flowers, sound asleep.

Gently waking him, Leaps led the barely conscious rabbit across the desert floor, along the ravine and down into the family home.


Chapter Two

Leaps didn’t sleep at all well that night. He had gone from home to home, warning everyone of the danger lurking outside their ravine, but he still felt there must be something

The minute it was light enough he felt safe, he returned to the spot he had last seen the monster. Carefully rounding the edge of the large boulder, he saw the Gila Monster sunning himself on the same rock as yesterday and was able to hop back out of sight before the creature saw him.

Leaps looked around and spotted a large bush that would be good cover should the monster leave the rock. Hopping to the edge of the bush, he settled down to wait and to think. He had to find a way to get this monster away from their home.

Unfortunately, thinking is a difficult thing for a little rabbit brain, so when Bounds arrived a couple of hours later, he found Leaps stretched out under the bush, sound asleep.

Bounds was saved the embarrassment of waking him by the arrival of the monster, being chased and pecked at by the roadrunners. He turned his great head and snapped at one of the birds, missing him by a feather’s width. That was the only indication he even saw the crazy birds squawking and screeching above his head.

He completely ignored the two dumbfounded rabbits as he marched relentlessly by them, climbed the rock and nestled down for a little nap in the sun.

Leaps shook his head. “How’d he…” he muttered. “What?”

“I came looking for you,” Bounds said. “You left really early and didn’t wake me up!”

Leaps shook his head again, looked up at the sky and realized just how long he must have been sleeping. He shuddered at the thought that the monster must have walked right by his sleeping body on his way out.

“I thought you needed the rest,” he said. “I mean, after yesterday.”

Bounds shook his head. “He really did just ignore us,” he said, amazed.

The roadrunners came around the boulder, disheartened, shaking their heads.

“We’ll never scare him away,” one said, stopping to talk to the rabbits. “Did you see, he almost got Sammy!” He pointed to a bird walking by who had a featherless patch of skin showing.

“You can’t give up!” Bounds declared.

“It’s too risky,” Sammy said, stopping. “And he doesn’t care how much we harass him. He just ignores us until one of us gets too close, then he snaps. It’s too risky.”

“Maybe we could find something to lure him away!” said Leaps. “What would you want if you were an ugly old monster?”

“Food,” said Bounds. The birds laughed. He added tentatively, “Or maybe a girl monster?”

“That’s it!” said Sammy. “Why didn’t we think of that? We’ll find him a mate! Then they can go off and live happily ever after!”

“Or,” said Leaps, “they can settle down right here and start raising a family.”

He glared at his brother and added, “A whole family of monsters, hungry monsters, right here in our part of the valley!”

“Bad idea,” said Bounds.

“So, we’re back to food. What could we use to lure him away?” asked Sammy.

“He likes eggs,” Bounds said hopefully.

The two birds just glared at him for a long time. Leaps said, “Go stand over there and make sure that monster doesn’t come this way.”

Bounds hung his head and slowly shuffled over to the boulder to peak around it.

It was the afternoon sun that finally broke up the vigil. The monster slowly marched to his lair and curled up in the shade to sleep and the birds and rabbits decided to do the same.

Not that any of the four defenders slept much. Each racked his brain for a way to get rid of the monster. Each grand idea dimmed with a closer look and each finally drifted off fitfully, only to rewaken in a panic at each sound.

The next morning dawned cool and overcast, highly unusual for the height of summer. Leaps and Bounds headed toward the monster’s favorite sunning rock just as the sun first peaked over the ridge, hoping to catch him if he left his lair.

They caught him alright. He was marching his determined, relentless way up the pathway to their ravine. The two rabbits stopped, panicked and fled back toward their home. Leaps had just enough presence of mind to stop at the top of the opening and pound out a warning on a flat, heavy rock used for that exact purpose by the rabbit colony.

Bounds fled, headlong and at full speed, shouting a warning as he ran. He ran the entire length of the ravine, all the way to the end where the walls closed together. There he bounced off the wall and turned, without slowing a bit, his voice horse from the shouting but still loud and strong.

The monster moved slowly, his tongue flickering from side to side, searching for food. Most of the family stayed in their dens, holding their breath, waiting for the monster to pass.

He stopped over one of the openings, not quite hidden enough under the edge of a bush and his head slowly moved back and forth as he smelled and tasted the air.

Leaps, seeing the monster stop, ran as close as he dared, thumping loudly on the ground in warning. The monster began to dig just a loud clap of thunder brought a downpour. The rain didn’t bother the monster. He just kept digging and digging, opening the shallow end of the rabbit’s warren.

Bunnies poured from the opening, running in every direction. The sharp jaws of the monster snapped at the scurrying bunnies but missed each one. The babies were just old enough to move quickly and each dashed away, zigging and zagging to make pursuit more difficult.

Leaps was proud. Their lessons had been learned well. His family had survived the first direct attack by the monster. He stood up at full height, trying to see where the monster would go next but didn’t stay upright long. Bounds, underestimating the distance it would take to stop, once again plowed into him and the two rolled to within a foot of the monster.

The monster raised his head, flicked his tongue and Leaps was sure he heard something that sounded like, “You two again!”

The rabbits stood their ground. Leaps wasn’t sure if Bounds was finally getting his courage back or if he was just too tired to run at this point. The monster stepped toward them. They backed up, keeping the distance between them the same.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. The sky cleared. The monster turned and started to go in another direction. Bounds kicked his strong back foot, sending a shower of water and pebbles at the monster. The monster turned and hissed. Both rabbits stood their ground.

The monster turned away again, but Leaps dashed around him and stopped just out of reach (he hoped) of those powerful jaws in front of the monster and stomped a shower of water at him.

The monster hissed again. Bounds kicked a large pebble and scored a direct hit on the monster’s back.

Enraged, the monster flew at Leaps with a speed that surprised both rabbits but Leaps had earned his name almost from birth. He sailed over the head of the monster and landed on the other side, unscathed.

The brothers exchanged a look of relief but didn’t back down.

With a disgusted grunt the monster turned and marched out of the ravine and back toward his lair, followed by the two rabbits. They met the roadrunners on the way, coming to see what all the shouting had been about.

The birds fell into step with the rabbits, matching long strides with the rabbit hops. The monster stopped at the edge of his lair. He had made it quickly, it only being a temporary place out of the sun until he could dig a bigger and better one. But he hadn’t expected a late summer shower when he had made it. It had filled the hole and the only shade the monster could find was under a nearby bush.

The rabbits and birds took advantage of the situation, the rabbits kicking stones with their powerful back feet and the birds dropping them from above. The monster shook his head when there was a direct hit, and hissed.

The birds were in favor of giving up and trying to find something that would hurt more when it hit the monster, but Leaps would just shake his head and say, “It’s working. Be patient.”

Bounds, concentrating on accuracy with the particularly large stone he was kicking, stepped just a little too close and almost lost a foot into those huge powerful jaws. He pulled back just in time. It took all his strength to make himself stay put but he agreed with his brother that all they had to do was wear him down, annoy him enough he’d want to leave.

Finally, with a slow, deliberate step, the monster left the shade and approached the rabbits. The birds ran to the rabbits sides.

Shaking his head, he hissed, “Bunnies and birds working together. Never saw the like! This is your fault!”

“We want you to go back where you come from!” shouted Bounds.

The monster looked around, muttering to himself, “What kind of crazy desert is this? Birds and bunnies working together! Raining in the middle of the summer! What’s the world coming to! Birds is one thing, but birds and bunnies together are just too much trouble!”

Turning and stomping off towards the valley floor, he said over his shoulder, “I’m going home where things make sense!”

Tail swinging, tongue flickering, the monster made his way back down into the valley, to the cheers of the birds and joyful thumping of Leaps and Bounds.

The End








Leaps and Bounds and the Desert Tortoise


“I told you!” The small tortoise raised his head as far as he could, considering the shell it was poking out of, and stamped a small stump of a foot.

“I’m endangered! And it’s illegal for you to so much as touch me!”

The two large ravens circled the outraged tortoise with a chuckle.

“You hear that, Lenny?” one of them said, cocking his head. “It’s illegal to eat this little fellow!”

“Yeah,” said Lenny. “I’d be shaking in my boots, if I had boots.”

Both birds laughed and slowly closed the circle.

Undaunted, the small tortoise stood his ground.

“If you so much as touch me, they’ll arrest you and kill you!” he shouted.

Laughing, Lenny pecked at the back of the still-soft shell.

“Nice and soft,” he said. “You want to do the honors, Benny?”

“Oh, sure!” Benny said with a laugh, “What’s the matter? You just afraid of whoever that is that will hunt us down and find us in the middle of all the other ravens and arrest us and kill us.”

“Yeah,” said Lenny, taking another small peck. “Whoever that is.”

The two rabbit brothers, Leaps and Bounds, looked at each other. They didn’t understand what the guy was talking about, but they certainly knew he was about to be lunch. Neither of them wanted to tangle with a couple of ravens that size, but they couldn’t just leave the silly creature to his fate.

Abruptly leaping from the cover of the bushes they had been hiding in, they raced toward the birds shouting at the top of their lungs. Confused, the two ravens lifted off the ground and hovered just above it. Lenny eyed the small tortoise longingly and was obviously trying to decide if it was worth fighting for when Bounds jumped beside the little one, bared his teeth and raised a large, strong back foot.

Deciding it wasn’t worth fighting a crazy rabbit, the two birds flew off.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?!” asked Leaps in total exasperation.

“Yeah, you trying to get killed?” Bounds agreed.

At the first shout from the rabbits, the tortoise had ducked his head into his shell. He now peeked out cautiously.

“Who are you?” he asked timidly.

“Your best friends!” Leaps snapped. Turning to his brother he added, “What were we thinking? We could have gotten ourselves killed!”

“We’re too big for ravens to eat,” said Bounds, dismissing his brother’s fears.

Leaps stood up and waved his front paws.

“We’re not too big for them to peck our eyes out!” he shouted.

“We’re fine,” insisted his brother. With a friendly nod of his head he turned to the little tortoise, who had been intently watching the two.

“Don’t hurt me!” the tortoise. “I’m endangered!”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” said Bounds gently. “We’re going to try and find a place to get you under something where you won’t be so… well, so visible.”

“You sound just like my mother,” the tortoise said with annoyance. “She thinks I should hide!”

“Well, it’s good to know that someone in your family has some sense,” said Leaps.

Looking skyward, Bounds said, “I think we should be someplace else.”

With an exasperated sigh, his brother asked, “Like where?”

“Like under a bush,” Bounds said as he ran for shelter. Before Leaps could react, he saw the two ravens diving straight at them. Instinct said, “RUN!” but when he turned he saw the tiny tortoise just sitting there, helpless.

Without thinking, he leapt into the air, hitting the first incoming raven directly in the side with a large, strong back foot. The raven squawked, dropped to the ground like a rock and rolled along the desert floor for quite a distance before finally standing up and shaking his head.

The second raven had aborted his dive when he saw the fate of his mate and was circling overhead.

“Quick!” said Leaps as he waved the tortoise toward a large prickly bush. Bounds appeared beside the tortoise, and grunted “I don’t think he understands quick,” as he pushed the small creature along the ground with his nose.

Leaps joined the effort and before the two ravens could regroup for a new attack, they had shoved the tortoise into a small space under the bush. The ravens could squawk all they wanted now. They were much too big to fly into the bush and would never slide along under it on their bellies like the rabbits had.

“Whew!” said Bounds. “You could have helped us a little!”

“Yeah,” said Leaps. “I’m certain you were purposely dragging your feet.”

“There was no need to try and rescue me,” said the small creature. “I was fine. As soon as those two realized who they were dealing with, they would have gone away. I’m endangered, you know.”

“Yeah, we heard,” said Bounds, pulling burrs from his fur. “What’s endangered?”

The small tortoise pulled himself up as high as his shell would allow and said, “There are very few of us left. We are very rare and very special and very…”

“Likely not to survive as a group.” Bounds finished the sentence for him.

“I’m not surprised,” said Leaps. “If all turtles are as…”

“I am a tortoise!” demanded the little fellow.

Leaps shut his eyes, obviously trying to control his temper. He opened them and said, slowly and precisely, “I’m not surprised you’re endangered if all tortoises are as eager to get themselves killed as you are.”

“I’m not eager to get myself killed,” said the tortoise with great dignity. “I was just trying to explain to those two that the consequences of…”

“Enough!” said Leaps, waving a paw. “Do you have a name? Where are you from? We haven’t seen you around here before. How did you get here? We have to get you home to your mommy.”

The tortoise wiggled his nose in disgust. “I do not need my mommy! I’m old enough to go by myself to visit my grandfather. I’m…”

“You turtles are a hazard not only to yourself but to unsuspecting rabbits who happen by,” said Bounds waving a particularly nasty looking sticker he’d pulled from his fur.

“I’m a tortoise!”

A loud racket from outside the bush hushed them all at once. It sounded like the ravens had returned with an entire army. Bounds peeked out as cautiously as he could. There were ravens everywhere, perched on trees, on rocks and walking on the ground. They were all watching the bush where the two hapless rabbits sat with the stubborn tortoise.

Jerking his head back into the somewhat shaky safety of the bush, Bounds whispered through gritted teeth.

“Look what you’ve got us into!” he demanded.

The small tortoise started making his way toward the opening, his movements deliberate and somewhat awkward but surprisingly fast, well, not exactly fast but faster than you would expect by looking at him.

Leaps grabbed the back of his shell, stopping him and said, “He didn’t mean that literally.”

Turning to his brother, he asked, “How bad is it?”

“It can’t get much worse,” Bounds said with a sad shake of his head. “There are enough of them, they could just tear this bush apart.”

Still showing no signs of fear, the small tortoise slipped away from Leaps and stuck his head out the opening. He popped his head back and turned to face the others just as an even larger uproar rose outside.

“Oh, goody,” he said. “I think you’re being rescued.”

“We’re being rescued,” said Leaps, his annoyance beyond hiding, now. “While he, the smallest and most vulnerable of all of us doesn’t need saving.”

“Yeah, he’s endangered,” said Bounds.

The two rabbits looked at each other, suddenly realizing what the tortoise had said.

“Rescued?” they asked in unison.

Their question was lost in the tumult that followed. The flapping of many wings couldn’t drown out the scream of ravens rising up and flying off in fear. Their screams were replaced by the yipping of an entire family of coyotes as they rounded a low ridge and chased after the ravens.

A small coyote puppy, not half the size of Leaps or Bounds, squirmed his way under the opening and almost into the small space where the rabbits sat cowering. His baby growls and barks were attracting the attention of their mom, Leaps could tell from the answering barks coming toward them. His mind raced frantically trying to figure out a safe way to get the puppy to leave.

Suddenly, Bounds stood and gave the small puppy a very powerful kick with his back foot. The puppy yelped as he rolled out of the opening and away from the bush.

Leaps gave Bounds a surprised, frightened look. The only sound was the tortoise rustling along the base of the bush, as if looking for a place to take a nap.

Bounds shrugged and whispered, “Maybe nobody noticed.”

Suddenly the small space was filled with the yipping of small coyotes and, worse yet, a large nose snarling and growling, pushed through the bush, followed by a very malevolent looking eye.

The tortoise turned to face the irate mother and said, “There’s no need for all this bother. They think they’re protecting me but really, I’m endangered, so you see you should just leave before someone arrests you.”

The surprised mother hesitated. The two rabbits closed their eyes, not wanting to see what was sure to happen next.

A sharp, deep bark from her mate made her raise her head and answer with what sounded to Leaps like a complaint. He repeated his bark, a little louder and sharper this time. The puppies scampered off toward him and after another malevolent look at the tortoise, the mother turned and joined her family.

The rabbits didn’t move, not even to breathe, until they could no longer hear the scampering of the small puppies.

Leaps turned to the tortoise and said, “Just for the record, that wasn’t a rescue.”

“Yeah,” said Bounds, collapsing beside his brother. “Coyotes eat rabbits!”

“And tur..tur…tortoises,” said Leaps.

“I like you guys,” said the tortoise, happily. “It’s really exciting around here!”

The two rabbits looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Where did you say we could find that mother of yours?” Leaps asked.

Bounds peeked out the opening and seeing no ravens or coyotes, cautiously crawled outside. The tortoise ignored Leaps and followed.

“What are we going to do now?’ the little guy asked, anxiously looking around for the next adventure.

Leaps brushed his fur and said firmly, “We are going to find your mother and leave you with her.”

The little tortoise sunk to the desert floor in disappointment, not a great distance considering that the bottom of his shell was only inches from it to begin with, but enough to bring Bounds to his side in sympathy.

“I know, it’s disappointing,” he said. “But we’re rabbits and we do rabbit things, fast things, things you couldn’t keep up with. You need to find your own turtle friends, who do turtle things, like swimming, I saw a turtle swimming once and it looked like fun but rabbits don’t like to get their fur wet, so you see, it’ll be more fun if you find your own friends.”

The tortoise looked up at him and said slowly, “Turtles do like to swim.”

Bounds beamed at him happily. “So let’s go find your buddies,” he said.

The tortoise didn’t move. “But I’m not a turtle,” he continued, “so I don’t swim.”

Bounds sunk back, looking almost as deflated as the tortoise.

Leaps, who had been studying a wash that curved off between two small rolling hills, turned and said, “I know where I’ve seen turtles, I mean tortoises!” with excitement.

Pointing down the wash, he continued, “Down that wash! There’s a bunch of them that live through there! I bet that’s where you’re from.”

Bounds jumped for joy. “Yeah!” he said, “We can find your mommy over there!”

The small tortoise marched away with a determined, if not exactly speedy pace in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” said Bounds, running after him. “You’re going the wrong way!”

“I’m going to see Old Stubs!” the small tortoise demanded.

“Who’s that?” Bounds asked.

Walking slowly behind the two, Leaps said, with certainty, “Your mom doesn’t know you’re out here, does she? You’ll get in trouble, won’t you? Is that why you want to see your grandfather?”

The tortoise stopped and looked back at Leaps. “He’s the only one who likes me. He lets me do whatever I want to, whenever I want.”

“And your mother doesn’t want you to go see him, does she?” Asked Leaps. “That’s why you had to run away.”

“She doesn’t think it’s good for me to do anything I want,” the small tortoise said with disgust.

“But he’s your grandfather,” said Bounds. “You should be allowed to see your grandfather!”

“Well,” said the small tortoise, looking at the sand in front of him. “He’s not exactly my grandfather, I mean really. He’s the oldest tortoise in the valley, maybe in the whole world and he lives out here on the valley floor rather than up in the wash where the family lives because he says their all idiots.”

“And he lets you do anything at all you want? Like wander out here and talk to ravens?”

Defiantly, the small tortoise raised his head. “It’s how he got so old, he says. It’s worry that kills you, he says. In this life, you just do what you do and sometimes you live and sometimes you don’t. Once you realize that, you never worry about anything again.”

“I’m beginning to see your mother’s point,” said Leaps.

“I’m not going back there!” He said. “And you can’t make me!”

“Whoa!” said Leaps, in two strong bounds landing in front of the tortoise. “Nobody’s trying to make you do anything, we just want you to be safe.”

“I don’t need to be safe!” argued the small tortoise, pulling up to his full height.

Bounds, coming up beside him said, as much to himself as the others, “Well, we could make you, I mean if we wanted to, we could. We are a lot bigger than you and…”

“I’m endangered!” insisted the tortoise. “Nobody can hurt me. The squirrels said so!”

Leaps, busy glaring at his brother and Bounds, busy being glared into silence, took a couple of seconds to realize what the little guy had said.

“Squirrels!” they both shouted in unison.

“You can’t believe squirrels,” Leaps said.

“Never listen to squirrels,” said Bounds.

“Yeah,” Leaps said shaking his head. “They told Bounds there were carrots deep in the ground, if you dug deep enough.”

The tortoise looked from one to the other, wary but curious.

“So, he believed them and started digging. He dug day and night. I had to stand watch for coyotes so neither of us got any sleep. Then the hole he was digging caved in on him and it was a mess. It took the whole family to dig him out and when Mom was dragging him off to get a good cleaning, I saw an entire row of squirrels on one of the high rocks, laughing their heads off.”

Bounds looked at his front paws sadly, “She practically scrubbed my paws off,” he muttered.

They both looked sternly at the small tortoise. “Never, ever believe a squirrel!” they admonished.

They watched as the look on the tortoise’s face went from confusion to surprise – “You mean I could have…he could have… to terror. He slowly backed up as he spoke, jumped higher than either rabbit would have guessed he could when he backed into a rock, turned around and, seeing a large, sturdy rock, scrunched his shell against it as tight as he could, scanning the skies for ravens.

“You want us to take you to this Old Stubs?” asked Leaps, gently.

“Are you nuts?” the tortoise said. “Between him and the squirrels, I won’t live long enough to harden my shell!”

The rabbits, one on each side, pried him from the rock and gently nudged him toward the wash.

“Come on,” said Bounds. “We’ll help you get home.”

“Yeah,” said Leaps, “And I bet your mom will be so glad you’re not listening to that Old Stubs anymore…”

“Not to mention giving up the endangered stuff,” added Bounds.

Laughing, Leaps continued, “She’ll probably forget to punish you for running away!”

The End