Too Many Ballerinas
Caroline Carey Finn
It was the third week in September, bright mornings, a nip creeping into the air, spider webs glistening covered in dew.
Ma Rabbit stretched her legs along the dry muddy path. The burrow was full to bursting. Four broods lounging about, including six daughters and their weighty broods, all under the one roof.
Ma could hear the commotion of waking, feet stamping and mayhem from holes further along the hedgerow. Ma Dobbo nodded to her, she too, taking in the morning air. She was buxom, her latest pregnancy clearly visible. Ma Rabbit contemplated, calculating, yes this must be Ma Dobbo’s eighth brood. Visibly suffering from that tattered undercarriage and painful varicose veins, Ma Rabbit recognised the delicate, considered movements of her neighbour.
Ma Rabbit had assumed a different life would be hers, when she was a young thing, affectionately known as Pearly. Those daydreams stayed with her, often rehashed as make-believe bedtime tales for her young broods. She’d go: “There once was a little bunny that spent all her day running wild and free, she was going to join a circus, be the rabbit pulled from a magician’s hat. Or if she trained really hard, she would head for golden glory as a Duracell Bunny and win medals for endurance.”
Somewhere in her past, those ideas were quashed. Was it after that big lockdown? Tests and jabs – the whispers of myxomatosis ran riot through fields and laneways.
Rumours got back to her Ma and Pa. Wild stories of rabbit feet suspended as so-called lucky charms. Big Folks wearing rabbit fur coats – but sure how would they get the fur? Nah those were just nasty rumours; she was sure of it.
It was after that lock down that Pa changed. Putting a halt to any gallivanting along the outskirts of the laneway or to the far corners of the field for the dozens of her brothers and sisters.
Then one chilly October morning, Pa was up earlier than usual, and he asked Pearly to join him. They made their way to visit Boxer Bunting, over the ridge by the winding stream. Once inside his burrow, without as much as a leave or bye, Pa turned and his white bobby tail skipped back outside, leaving Pearly standing in front of Boxer.
Boxer had laid out some bright red rose hips and frosted blue sloeberries in his small but freshly dug burrow. Pearly tucked in. They were yummy. Always chatty when nervous, she rattled on about her ambitions to see more of the world, as she was now the far side of the ridge, she explained how a dance troop might be passing upstream and she could catch a ride.
Boxer threw back his fluffy head: “It’s not every girl gets to be what they want, the world couldn’t support that many ballerinas,” he laughed his hearty laugh, his eyes sizing Pearly up.
Pearly forced a smile, to be polite, like. Boxer put his fluffy paw around her shoulder, and together they moved to the back of the burrow to let their meal digest and to rest.
The squeal of the brood bailing outside pushing past Ma Rabbit burst her solitary daydream moment. Her lower back ached as she caught up with Boxer and the rest ready to nibble the fresh vegetation on the slope of the ridge. Another day had begun.
Caroline Carey Finn is a member of Inklings Writing Group, who meet on Tuesdays at 11am and on Wednesdays at 7.30pm in the Annebrook House Hotel. Mullingar. Aspiring and fun writers welcome.