Thanks, Cor and Swan! ^.^

your an exelent writer!!

Thanks, Bookler! (I just realized, it's been a long time since I've called you that!)

OK, it was like this. I was showing Aslie a picture of a kind of rabbit I want to have someday—a giant chinchilla rabbit. I've only seen photos, never actually seen one in real life, but as far as I'm able to tell, they get to be maybe as big as a medium-size dog in mass? but since rabbits are very much a different shape than dogs, maybe closer to the height of a smallish dog? (with exceptionally long ears, of course). Depending on the size of the individual rabbit and where precisely one puts the boundary between small, medium, and large dogs. Something like that. Anyway, big rabbits. I told Aslie I only wanted one rabbit that big, as I don't see a real need for more of them in the immediate future. Aslie suggested raising an army of giant rabbits. And so a story was born… 🙂

(Disclaimer: Not all rabbit behavior described in this story is actually typical rabbit behavior.)

The Rabbit Army of Sarah Underhill

Sarah had not always raised rabbits. In fact, she spent most of her life feeling a sort of distaste for the little creatures, which feeling probably would have been much stronger had she not found them to be so uninteresting. All that changed, however, when two strange (and apparently completely unrelated) things happened one hot July week.

The first strange thing was that a very large family of pocket-size dragons moved in under the next hill over from the hill under which Sarah lived. They were pretty, it's true, and shimmered with more colors than all the jewels in the world. On the other hand, not only was their sudden appearance rather distressing to the people in the area (who had never previously believed that dragons existed), but they also were apparently there with the purpose of gathering all the jewels in that part of the world. All the neighbors had been quite prepared to put up with their new mythological neighbors despite their discomfort at having to so suddenly adjust to the idea of dragons being real, after all. However, outright thievery, they felt, was not to be tolerated. Not even from something small and very pretty with a lot of sharp teeth and pointy claws. For the dragons, once settled in, got busy right away wriggling into everyone's houses, and claiming all their "treasures"—generally while the owner of the shiny stolen things was watching with horror. They were a peaceful people, for the most part, and few dared to resist this outrage for fear of getting hurt. Sarah Underhill was one of the few who tried, and ended up with tiny bites on one slightly singed finger. She did not repeat the attempt.

The second strange thing that happened was that one morning, very early, someone knocked on Sarah's front door, leaving on the doorstep a large basket of rabbits. When Sarah opened the door, nobody was about, except one of those cottontail rabbits who liked to snack on Sarah's garden. She glared at it, and it blinked calmly at her. The basket said, "Sarah's Baby Rabbits" on it, and though the lighting was not good, there did seem to be a number of wiggling furry things in it. This was a particularly strange thing to happen because Sarah's distaste for little furry rabbits was well-known (and, as it turned out when Sarah investigated the matter further later on, nobody else received any rabbits). Feeling a bit grumpy, Sarah decided that she couldn't very well leave the poor things out where dragons could get at them. She did not know if dragons ate rabbits, but she did not want to take chances. She could always try to find someone to take them off her hands at a more reasonable hour. So she carried the big basket into the kitchen, where she could examine the animals in comfort.

Upon examining the baby rabbits, Sarah was rather surprised. "Why," she said, "these rabbits look rather like the baby rabbits I saw once—but they are as big as the adult rabbits that like to eat my garden!" She found herself looking at them approvingly, much to her surprise. "Why," she told herself, "when these baby rabbits—all twenty of them!" (for that was, indeed, the extravagant number she had received) "are quite grown up, no nasty neighbor dragons would even try to eat them, I can tell you that!" And Sarah beamed upon her new pets with steadily growing favor. It was quite possible—probable, even—she told herself, that she only disliked rabbits because the wild kind did so like to eat all her favorite plants. These pets, on the other hand—well, she thought they were simply wonderful. Sarah yawned.

"Well, I am going back to bed," she told her new pets. "You get some sleep, too."

She went off. The rabbits exchanged glances and held a quick consolation amongst themselves. In which, if you are curious, they decided in rabbit talk that this person was quite the right sort of person, and they ought to take her advice and go to sleep. But not here, of course; they had only recently left their mothers, and felt the need of someone to be with them in this strange new place. So, one by one, they hopped out of their basket and silently followed Sarah all the way to her room. She had fallen asleep already—she was a very good sleeper—but drowsily woke up slightly as twenty furry little bodies unexpectedly burrowed next to her. She was too tired to decide just then whether she liked this, or whether it was annoying pet behavior. She fell back asleep, among all the rabbits. She never did bother to properly decide that question, as the rabbits quickly became quite stubborn about always coming to sleep next to her, from that time forward (even when they were full-grown).

The next morning (or, at a more reasonable hour of the same morning, rather), Sarah brought one of the rabbits around town to see if she could discover who left them on her doorstep. Everyone was very obviously surprised to see Sarah with the rabbit (which she had had a bit of trouble figuring out how to hold so that both she and the rabbit were happy and comfortable). Fortunately, though she was unable to discover who it was who gave them to her, she was able to find a friendly neighbor who knew a thing or two about rabbits, and he promised to come help her figure out how to care for them properly.

"I raised rabbits for years," he explained. "Mine were the most beautiful rabbits in the kingdom. I'm much too old for the business now, of course. Don't mind helping you get started, though."

So, during the next few days, Sarah became the town's giant rabbit raiser. Her rabbits grew much more quickly than she had expected, and the whole village loved to come drop by to see them. The novelty of it being Sarah Underhill of all people to be raising giant rabbits caused a good deal of mirth, until everyone got used to the idea. After they were used to the idea, the giant, and very friendly, rabbits were still, naturally, very popular.

The only neighbors who did not come to see the giant rabbits were the dragons. The first time Sarah took her twenty rabbits for a walk (wearing twenty rabbit harnesses), they hopped past the dragons' under-hill home on their way home from their walk. To Sarah's surprise, the little dragons who were playing in front of their hill took one look at the approaching rabbits and then fled into their house. A moment later, all the windows and doors were slammed shut, and Sarah heard a bolt shoot shut at the front door. Sarah and her rabbits thought this was very odd—especially since she would have thought it much more likely for them to look at her newly-acquired herd as potential snacks.

The rabbits seemed to be very pleased with themselves. Sarah noticed a cottontail rabbit across from them. It blinked at her solemnly, seeming to have stopped to watch the dragons' reaction. Sarah managed to smile back at it, though she was still not quite happy with the wild garden-eating rabbits.

Soon after this, it was discovered that Sarah's house was no longer being robbed, while everyone else's houses were. This got everyone talking, and by and by, a secret meeting was held about the potential of using Sarah's rabbits (which were now quite large) to do something about the thieving dragons.

"If the dragons are afraid of the giant rabbits of Sarah Underhill, then there is somebody now who can chase thieves out of houses without getting hurt!" said the town chimney sweep, who, it was noticed, had a bandaged finger that day. "So all we need to do is, everyone take a rabbit home, and they can do guard duty for us!"

Sarah glared at him and threw her arms possessively around the rabbit that was sitting on her lap (for her rabbits came everywhere with her, and did not even need the guidance of harnesses and leashes any longer). But, she needn't have bothered, for the idea proved not to be well-received.

"But she only has twenty of them," objected the baker. "That's not enough to go around."

"Besides," said the tailor, "not all of us can really do well with a rabbit around. I don't have time for keeping a rabbit out of my needles and thread."

The chimney sweep scowled and massaged his bandaged finger indignantly.

All this time, the town's treasurer had been watching Sarah's giant rabbits meditatively. Now she stood up and cleared her throat impressively. All eyes were immediately on the treasurer, filled with much hope, for she was well-known for her solid common sense and had got the town out of many troubles.

"Sarah," she said, "it seems that your rabbits would follow you anywhere. Do you think you could train your rabbits to be our town army?"

Everyone exchanged glances, impressed at the simplicity of the scheme.

"Why, that might just work!" said Sarah.

And that was that. Without giving Sarah (or the treasurer, for that matter) a chance to say even one word more, Sarah was immediately appointed as the head of the town's very first army. She and the rabbits were almost pushed out the door of the town hall (a sprawling building that covered the level land in between three hills). The townspeople very strongly felt that wasting time made no sense; action was what everybody longed for. They were all done with bites and burns and thieves, and wanted to be left to quietly go about their peaceful lives as they had before they were obliged to learn that dragons actually existed.

So Sarah headed towards home with her giant rabbits, to train them. They were now as big as smallish dogs, or maybe a little bigger. They looked so big next to the cottontail rabbit that they passed on their way out the door of the town hall. Sarah found herself sniffling nostalgically a bit as she reflected that her own dear rabbits had been no bigger than a cottontail when they came to her as babies. She had been softening lately towards the garden rabbits, as more and more they reminded her of her own dear pets. She had even started planting some things specifically for the wild rabbits to eat (and then took steps to rabbit-proof the bits of her garden that she wanted left untouched.)

So Sarah Underhill brought her rabbits home to start training her miniature army of giant rabbits. She taught the rabbits to drill, to the delight of all the townspeople. She taught them how to chase after dragons. She taught them to spot the signs of a house being robbed. She even taught them to catch pickpockets, for pickpockets had been a problem for their town since before the dragons even came. The rabbit army of Sarah Underhill steadily grew in popularity with all the town as dragon-thieves less and less commonly risked invading people's homes.

The rabbit army grew in popularity with all the residents of the town, that is, with the obvious exception of the pocket-size dragons, who grew steadily more discontent with this town.

In fact, one day that September, the town was incredibly peaceful, as no pockets were being picked, giant rabbits were hopping solemnly through their drills in the town square, and not a single dragon was in sight. And the reason there were no dragons in sight? All of that large family were in their home, with all the doors and windows locked, holding their own emergency meeting.

"And you said that this town would be perfect, Uncle George!" one fiery red young dragon was saying to a forest green dragon. "But when we came here what did we find? Rabbits! More rabbits just like in the last town, Uncle George! And the really big ones, too!" he whined. "The really, really big ones are the worst." He shuddered at the thought of the horrifying animals.

"I tell you that there was nothing but a few of those little garden rabbits around when I scouted out this place, young Reginald!" Uncle George countered. "And you know that a handful of wild rabbits are anywhere we might settle down. Terrifying as they are, there is simply no way to avoid them completely if we plan to keep on with our chosen profession, for we have never discovered a land where people want to live, where the rabbits do not like to live as well!" Uncle George seemed to be highly annoyed at having all the blame put on him.

"Well, George dear," said his wife (a charmingly orange dragon), "the army of giant rabbits is here now, even if they were not here when you found this town for us. I say that this little town is not nearly rich enough for it to be worth it to us to stay where these giant rabbits are any longer." And she toyed with the town treasurer's golden locket thoughtfully (which she was wearing around her dragon neck).

Uncle George sighed and tried to hide his annoyance. "Very well, Dahlia dear," he said. He then turned to face all his relations. "All in favor of looking for a new home say 'aye.'"

"Aye!" shouted most of the dragons, enthusiastically. The sudden loud noise startled a passing cottontail rabbit, who stopped outside of the dragons' home to see if anything of note was going on in there.

"All opposed, say 'nay,'" said Uncle George.

"Nay!" said a nervous-looking sapphire-colored dragon.

"Oh, come on Mildred!" shouted most of her relations.

She sighed. "Very well, might as well go on as stay here," she conceded, grumpily.

"Well, let us gather our treasure and be off, then," said Uncle George, who apparently felt a bit better now.

And, as the cottontail outside watched, all the dragons flew out of their house, each carrying a sack of treasure and casting anxious glances at the cottontail as they flew off in a jewel-colored stream of dragons.

"About time they left," muttered the cottontail to herself. Then, after peeking through the dragons' house to make certain that they were all gone, she hopped out of town, herself, in the same general direction as the dragons had gone.

A week later, an interesting sight met the eyes of passing birds in a forest clearing a day or two rabbit's journey away from the town where Sarah Underhill lived.

"Sarah Underhill's rabbit army was a complete success," one cottontail rabbit was saying to a gathering of a couple dozen of her siblings. "The thieving dragons have gone off to Bellton-by-the-Sea. I found just the right sort of person there, named Jason Peters. Hates rabbits, deer, anything that dares touch anything in his garden. Shall we gather a basketful of baby giant rabbits for him, then?"

All the other rabbits nodded cheerfully in agreement, some of them chuckling quite a bit.

"So our idea has been proving very successful," one rabbit told his neighbor, who giggled happily.

"Those thieves are bound to give up their profession eventually, don't you agree?" she responded.

"I like helping people realize that they actually do like rabbits," said another, and the rest of the group murmured in agreement.

"Don't you just love our job?" asked the first cottontail.

A few days later, Jason Peters, who had never in his life done anything exciting except growing a pumpkin big enough that he had hollowed it out and made it into his house, woke up very early in the morning after an unpleasant dream about the pocket-size grass-green dragon that had bit him the day before. Someone was knocking on his door. He opened his front door to find that somebody had left a very large basket on his front porch.

"Jason's baby rabbits," he read, and then peered around up and down the street. No one was there, except for a cottontail rabbit across the street that seemed to be watching him curiously. He scowled at it, but it just continued to look at him calmly.

"Well, anyway," he said, looking at the furry, wiggling things in the basket, "might as well bring them inside. I don't know if those dragons eat rabbits, but might as well bring the little ones inside just in case. I can always find someone to take them off my hands when it is a more reasonable hour of the morning."

So he carried the heavy basket into his kitchen and examined the baby rabbits.

"Baby rabbits?" he asked, as he looked at the twenty rabbits as big as that cottontail outside. "Why if these are just babies, think how big they will be when they grow up!" He chuckled. "The man who raises giant pumpkins might be finding himself raising giant rabbits if he is not careful. But, bed now. Sleep, rabbits!"

And he petted one of them, which nuzzled his hand. He felt his heart soften towards his new pet rabbits even more, and he walked off back to bed.

A moment or two later, all twenty baby rabbits hopped after him and, finding him already fast asleep in his room, they curled up all around him, where he would discover them when he awoke a few hours later.

The End.

(I also posted this story--and the one about Joseph in Prison--on my website; PM me or talk to me in chat or whatever if you want to see links to that/those) 🙂

Those sneaky little rabbits! 😀 That was honestly one of the most adorable things I've ever read! Lovely story-telling Islie. ^.^

That was cute and adorable and amazing!

Thanks, Jaygee and Norelle! ^.^ I didn't expect people to like it as much as all that, but I'm glad you liked it! 🙂

Love, Islie 🙂