Prey

“But rabbits are so boring!” exclaimed Mum. I was after all, speaking to a woman who was sticking strands of my waist length hair up the cat’s nose while cradling its whale like proportions in her lap. I looked at her aghast anyway, although at a recent house party I had also argued that cats were by far the superior domesticated animal. “Rabbits,” I had declared to my buddy Joe, who was tilting dangerously, “are like hamsters. Cute but kind of pointless as pets go. Cats, on the other hand, have personalities; you can form a connection with a cat.” There’s no doubt I would have stuck to this unfounded notion if the aquatics shop hadn’t been shut when Stephen and I had lumbered past Sid, the local ukulele playing hippie, to pick up fish food for our Black Moors a couple of weeks later.

A scarlet macaw greeted us with a pompous shuffle and an invite to “please feck off,” as we stepped into the pet shop. Lemon and honey guinea pigs tumbled over each other like bullet shaped acrobats, tailless bottoms wriggling with excitement, while Albus, the only baby rabbit, or ‘kitten’, was scrunched up in a dusty corner of the pen, his cadet grey mane a static mess. He observed his giddy cellmates with an expression reminiscent of the slow loris who went viral for eating a rice ball, a video that was later deemed as cruel; slow lorises, it transpired, should not be consuming rice of any kind. As his face (Albus, not the slow loris) twitched at the fog of exhaust fumes fanning through the door, he noticed my idiotic grin. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he took on the look of a dog who has been reprimanded for digging in the neighbour’s garden, when it was really the cat. He was a refreshing raincloud after too many rays of sunshine.

“Gorgeous, isn’t he?” cooed rabbit extraordinaire Georgie, her reptilian skin glistening under the strip lighting (“Hot, hot, hot!” hooted the macaw). “He’s a single mane Lionhead; see how he only has woolly hair around his head? Double mane rabbits have it on their flanks, or skirts, as well. Would you like to hold him? He’s even softer than he looks.” Unhooking the gate to cheers from the guinea pigs, she expertly scooped Albus up, who blinked furiously, flecks of sawdust decorating his cotton wool tummy. She dropped him into my arms where he settled against my chest with a huff as I pulled my hair out of the way, noticing how course it felt in comparison to the feathery quiff tickling my nostrils. I was transported back to the moist, saccharine fug of the barns at Crealy Adventure Park where horses, goats, rabbits and donkeys were housed, a place I haven’t visited in years (“money-grabbing bastards,” my dad raged during the van ride home after the one time he took my brothers and me).

“Rabbits make great pets; they have buckets of character and you can train them too,” Georgie continued, fishing out a sunflower seed from her trouser pocket and offering it to a pudgy hamster in a nearby cage. The hamster took the seed gently with both hands and stuffed it unceremoniously into its cheek pouch. “Although, contrary to popular belief, we don’t recommend them for children because they require a lot of care. They’re actually considered an exotic pet in the UK; only specially trained vets can treat their delicate systems.  They’re incapable of vomiting, you know. It’s physically impossible.” The hamster blinked at us as I gave Albus a kiss on the end of his nose; he snuffled in return. “We’re not leaving here without him, are we?” sighed Stephen.

Back at home, we threw names into the night as I unwrapped wicker toys and Stephen kicked the gun metal play pen that had bitten his little finger a moment ago. “What about Dave?” I joked. “Yoda’s better,” said Stephen with a sideways look at me. We watched him, mutton chops dripping water over the oriental rug, as his stomach emitted an enormous warble. He eyed me suspiciously. Giggling, I reached over and pulled gently on one of his gremlin ears. In one motion, he lunged his body forward, kicking his legs and tossing his head, all the while honking madly. He sounded like a pig on heat. “CHRIST! HE’S HAVING A SEIZURE!” I bellowed, startling the lunatic mid twist so that he catapulted headfirst into the wall. “Nah, it’s called a binky, babe,” chuckled Stephen, as I examined the little guy for bumps. “They do it in the wild: I used to see them leaping around in my grandad’s field like that. He’s happy, he’s showing you he’s happy.” I plopped Albus on top of the meadow hay in in his litter tray, where he promptly stuck his head between his legs and chewed on a caecotroph, or nutrient-rich dropping. “How about Albus?” Stephen said suddenly, chucking himself onto the sagging sofa and slurping at his builder’s tea. “He’s got the hair.” He did indeed; fine, candyfloss hair that fell across his eyes, causing him to “pufft” it out of the way; it really was reminiscent of Professor Dumbledore.

During lunch In October 1997, four months after its initial print run, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was passed to me in the school hall. The enormous velvet curtains, which oozed with the stench of gym socks, cast the hall in a crepuscular light, so that it resembled the parlour of a cartoon mole and his bespectacled family. That day however, autumnal sunbeams battled through the windows to splash gold on the chipped parquet flooring and I was feeling rebellious in my blue and white chequered dress and scuffed Mary Janes (“what if she catches a cold?” Mum had fretted over the muesli box to Dad). My new best friend Susie had finished the book and was gibbering about owls and something unpleasant sounding called Hogwarts. Her toad-like eyes bulged with excitement as I skimmed the blurb hungrily and inhaled an unripe banana stolen from my brother’s lunchbox that morning.

The next day, I barrelled through a group of chattering sixth years (“-watch it, freak!”) and skidded to a stop in front of Susie, who was lowering her puppy fat on to a bench and wrestling with a pink plastic lunchbox. The temperature had dropped a degree overnight and I was back in my pilly school jumper which was two sizes too big in case I underwent a growth spurt after the shops shut. “This book is the BEST!” I screeched, waving the novel in Susie’s flushed face with one hand and hoisting up my trousers with the other. “Isn’t it AMAZING? I wish I could do magic!” she squealed back at me, tucking a lank strand of hair behind an unpierced ear and grinning, cerulean eyes protruding wildly. It wasn’t just the pull of potions classes that enthralled me though; it was an affinity with Harry who, with his strange attire and unique family was different, the weirdo outsider that every school knows. While I wasn’t on the same level as bucktoothed Luis, who lived on a chicken farm, I did read The New Scientist, listen to the Beatles and spend my weekends hugging trees. More importantly, I had no idea what was going on in Eastenders.

“Aren’t rabbits supposed to love carrots?” yelped Stephen, galloping into the living room with a handful of soggy vegetables. Albus was honking delightedly, his mullet blowing in the wind as he streaked under the coffee table. “Apparently carrots have a high sugar content. They’re really bad for rabbits in high quantities, so it’s probably a good thing he isn’t keen,” I yelled back, after Googling ‘facts about rabbits’ on my cracked phone. “Perhaps he doesn’t have a sweet tooth.” I shook the bag of rabbit nuggets (a crucial addition to hay) and Albus loped over and teetered back on to his hind legs. He balanced himself like a hairy tightrope walker and begged, waving his paws erratically. Feeling optimistic a few days later, I offered him some kale which is, according to Georgie, a healthy and irresistible supplement. He snorted, turned his back and kicked dirt in my face.

I was scuttling home from school, Adidas hood hiding my face and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tucked protectively in my arms, when a putrid tomato zipped past my right ear and splattered on the gravel, propelling juicy shrapnel over my trainers. “Haven’t they had enough?” I thought desperately, as rancid eggs exploded on my spine in a sulphuric burst of charcoal and khaki. Shouts of “FREAK!” “SKANK!” and “WHORE!’ detonated on my soul, causing a visceral agony that would take a lot longer to wash away. Peering around my book, which I was now wielding like a shield (sorry, Harry), I spotted Lucy and Jess: they were braying to each other from a park bench on my left as their flock of friends armed themselves from a steaming binbag. I froze: a prickly heat in the small of my back blistered its way through my torso, reaching a bubbling crescendo at the base of my throat. I tried to swallow but discovered I had forgotten how to. Fragments of my smouldering flesh floated off into the sultry June air as my body disintegrated into an ashy pile. I had almost crumbled away when a powdery satsuma to the stomach knocked me back into reality and I was jolted into motion. Wishing I could hex the bitches, I launched myself through the wrought iron gates and into the humming street beyond. 

“Of course, rabbits are prey animals,” said Dad, peering over the steering wheel as we left the claustrophobic country lane and pulled into a layby. “Yep. That’s why most pet rabbits don’t like being picked up; it’s very similar to how a bird of prey would grab them.” Horse chestnut trees formed a partial canopy overhead, spreading shadowy inkblots across the tiny meadow in front of us which, according to Dad, was an ideal location for “bunny watching”. He turned off the radio while I poured muddy coffee into two chipped mugs, feeling very much like I was at an outdoor cinema. The technicolour screen displayed a salmon sky, in front of which the horse chestnuts danced, waving their skeletal fingers in an ethereal prelude. I squinted into the shaggy grass, trying to detect movement; rabbits are crepuscular, meaning they are most active at dawn and dusk, so now was, in theory, the perfect time to see them. “By the way, have you ever eaten rabbit? It’s quite tasty,” asked Dad brightly. “Grandad used to keep them for their meat. He had a shed in the garden by the allotment with a stack of cages lined up against one wall; it was common for people to breed them back then because food was still scarce after the war.”

A flash of white, like the spark of a lighter, flickered in the gloom. There was nothing for a long second, until: “there, look! There’s two – three – no four of the buggers!” Tan bodied and dusky eyed, the rabbits tiptoed from behind the trees, delicately pointing their noses in our direction. With almost 360 degree vision and ears that can rotate 180 degrees, they were undoubtedly aware of our presence but I sat still anyway, not daring even to look at Dad. After deciding we weren’t a threat, they pranced waiflike into the long grass, white stomachs winking. “We’re probably looking at a colony of rabbits from a local warren,” I breathed, watching a particularly gaunt rabbit bite the head off a daisy and masticate gormlessly. “A warren can house upwards of 40 or 50 rabbits; there could be dozens more still behind the trees.”

The growl of a car crawling towards us signalled the end of the show; the rabbits scattered, weaving themselves back into the darkness that had floated down like a blanket, engulfing us all in cosy anonymity. A few seconds later, a Ford Fiesta groused its way around the corner, sweeping an accusatory glare over the thicket; four disembodied eyes glinted back, unblinking and bloodshot, before melting away from view as the car veered into the valley below.