The Tale of Mark the Bunny

The Tale of Mark the Bunny
By Lewis Shiner
Distributed under Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

One spring it stopped raining in early March and didn't start again.
There was one very well-off bunny in the village who had a large burrow and lots of food saved up. He wasn't worried about the drought at all. The other bunnies, though, looked at the purple-red nettles withering in the fields and the mayweed that hadn't even flowered and wondered if they were going to have enough food to get them through the next winter.
The very well-off bunny was named Albertus, but everybody called him Big Al--at least they called him that when they were sure he couldn't hear them. Big Al was in fact a very large bunny with long, white, silky fur. He had lots of land that his parents had left to him, and he never let any of the other bunnies gather food there. The story was that Big Al had sat on the one bunny who tried to make off with some of his carrots until the small bunny begged for mercy. After Big Al let him up, the small bunny moved to another village.
One morning a dozen or more bunnies sat around the village square, licking the dew off the dried and wrinkled clover to quench their thirsts, and talking about the drought. There was still a bit of a cool breeze from Possum Creek, a mile or so away. Sophie Bunny, who was large and sleek, with a black circle around one eye, was there with her husband Lenny and their youngest, Ralph, who still lived at home with them.
"I don't mind telling you," Lenny said, "I'm getting a little scared by all this." Lenny was a small, tan bunny with buck teeth and big cheeks like a chipmunk.
"No need to be afraid," said the short, overweight Reverend Billy Bunny, the village's spiritual leader. "The Easter Bunny will provide." He sat, as he usually did, by the thick green hawthorn bush in the middle of the square--although the bush was neither as thick nor as green as it had once been.
"Easter was two weeks ago," said Maria Bunny. "And there's not a cloud in the sky."
"I thought the Easter Bunny just did eggs," little Ralph said.
"Actually," Lenny said, "so did I."
"I never really understood what a bunny was doing with eggs in the first place," Sophie said, "if you want to know the truth."
"We could ask Big Al for help," Annie Bunny suggested. "He's got enough food for everybody."
It was well known that Big Al provided the Reverend Billy's food. He'd discovered Billy preaching in the village square a few years before and liked the fact that most of Billy's sermons were about keeping things the way they already were. Since then word had gone around that Big Al thought the other bunnies should pay attention when the Reverend Billy had something to say, and that he would frown on anyone who made fun of him in public. If anybody could talk to Big Al, it had to be the Reverend Billy.
"Well, ah, ahem," Billy said. Ever since he became official, he'd started to talk like a much older rabbit. "I think we should remember that the Easter Bunny helps those who help themselves." This was exactly the sort of thinking that had impressed Big Al.
"I agree," Annie said. "Let's help ourselves to some of Big Al's food."
Annie's husband Jonathan said, "I don't think that's what he meant."
Suddenly a bunny no one had ever seen before hopped out from behind a tree. He was very thin, with black fur and dark, intense eyes. "I know one thing you could do," he said. "You could stop eating all that clover while you're worrying about starving to death."
"Darn it!" Lenny said. "I am eating again."
"Who are you?" the Reverend Billy asked the stranger.
"My name is Mark."
Billy narrowed his eyes. "Are you the same Mark Bunny that used to live down by Clearwater Pond? The one that got kicked out of the village for being a troublemaker?"
"I guess I am," Mark said.
"Uh oh," somebody said. For a few seconds all the bunnies hopped around nervously, and when everyone quieted down again Mark had lots of space around him in all directions.
Billy continued to stare at Mark from his high position. "You keep moving along," he said. "We don't want your kind around here."
Mark looked at the other bunnies to see if anyone else wanted to speak up. When no one did he said, "Okay," and hopped slowly away.
*
Late that afternoon, as Sophie, Lenny, and Ralph headed home to their burrow, they saw Mark in the grass by the side of the path ahead of them.
"Oh dear," Lenny said. "It's that Mark bunny."
"I don't think he'd actually hurt us, do you?"