Any evidence of the fallen autumnal leaves that had covered everything in a damp mush was now buried under a sparkling white blanket. The only things to escape the deep mounds of snow were the trees—dark, brittle sticks that stretched upwards, puncturing the dense, gray backdrop above. The multitude of fall colors that had transformed the surrounding hills for the preceding weeks were now reduced to a mere black and white. The natural world no longer buzzed with any signs of life but lay still and quiet—a lethargic approach to the eventual slumber of the upcoming winter.
B-Jay, the red Beetle car, wasn’t sure if his friends would be ready for another adventure, but he had brand new snow tires fitted and was eager to try them out. He would drive to the cottonwood tree to see how the tires felt and, if his friends were there, then so much the better. They could at least discuss and plan what they were going to do for Halloween.
His owner had shoveled the drive hours earlier, so there was no trouble exiting the garage, and the road ahead had been plowed to keep the town accessible for the upcoming celebrations. Even so, he was pleased with how his new tires hugged the road and gave a little toot of approval. It wasn’t late in the day, but the dense snow clouds blocked out the evening sun, so he turned on his lights as a precaution, gave a little squirt of water to his windshield, flipped his wipers left and right to ensure a good clean, and proceeded along the drive.
It wasn’t too long before he found himself at the cottonwood tree and was overjoyed when he saw that his friends were there. It was a pleasant surprise and one which was most worthy of a few more toots of his horn.
“Hi everyone!” he exclaimed as he pulled up, smoke chugging out of his exhaust and drifting happily into the night air. “How are you all on this fine snowy day?”
B-Jay didn’t mind the cold; he just turned his heater up to maximum and kept the windows tightly shut. Despite the freezing temperatures, he was feeling quite toasty.
“Hi B-Jay,” replied Zippo the tiny ant, stretching out his calves in preparation for any performance he felt was appropriate for the evening's agenda. “It is good to see you again. You chose a good night to turn up—everyone is here.”
“I see that,” said B-Jay, “but where is Digger Bo hiding? Don’t tell me it is too cold for him to tumble.”
“Oh no, he is in his burrow. He says he has something to show us. I am not sure if he meant for us to follow him into his burrow or if he is going to come back out; he just said he had a surprise and then disappeared very quickly,” said Zippo, pulling his scarf tighter after concluding his warm-up.
“If he doesn’t appear shortly, then we could always play a guessing game,” suggested Maxwell, the large St. Bernard dog. “I do so love the games we play.” He lowered his head slightly, his warm breath creating a small fog cloud in front of him.
“I am not sure how we will know who has the correct guess unless he does appear,” reasoned Cressida, the proud black cat, her tone impatient. “Maybe it would be a better idea to do Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who is going to go into that deep, dark, damp, dingy, black hole to find him.” She lifted her paw daintily, trying not to place it on the damp earth, having just cleaned it.
“Oh, I like the sound of that game!” replied Maxwell, pricking back his ears and cocking his head to the side. “But I don’t think it will work if there are five of us. If I choose Rock, Cressida chooses Paper, and B-Jay chooses Scissors, then there is nothing left for Aruna or Zippo to choose.” He flapped his ears side to side then amused himself with another small fog cloud.
Before anyone had a chance to laugh, Digger Bo the badger exited the burrow with a majestic tumble, twitched his whiskers, and was followed from the burrow by a bounding white baby rabbit, who raced around and around the cottonwood tree before settling in front of them. After a few laps the tiny indentations that the rabbit left in the fresh snow gave the impression of somebody being a little lost.
Everyone stopped talking for the next few minutes, unsure of what was going on, all eyes locked upon the rabbit that stood before them, with its whiskers twitching and a hind foot thumping. No one could have guessed that Digger Bo was going to surprise them with a rabbit. They all stared at the figure, unsure of what to say, before turning their attention toward Digger Bo. Maxwell rose from his haunches and started sniffing the rabbit, who sat there unperturbed, its long ears sitting upright and its nose twitching as it blinked.
“Hands up if your guess involved the word ‘rabbit,’” asked Cressida, breaking the silence and finally placing her leg on the cold grass.
“What have you been up to, Digger?” questioned Aruna from his perch in the tree above. “How do you come to possess a rabbit?” His eyes never blinked but remained locked on the rabbit.
“I found him,” replied Digger Bo innocently, tumbling sideways—a move he had just learned from the bounding rabbit. “He wandered into my burrow when the snow started falling. I think he is lost. Either that or he likes following me around.” He wiggled his fluffy chin when he said the last comment hoping that to be the case.
“Well, that could prove to be a problem,” B-Jay stated with concern, turning up his heater to maximum. The warm air exiting from his side vents slightly fogged his windshield. “I am not sure where the nearest ‘Lost and Found’ department is in town and, even if I did, it is surely closed at this time of night. The earliest we could go there would be Monday, which means we have to think of something else.”
“I think you will find that the rabbit has a mother and father to look after it,” informed Cressida with authority, flicking her ears toward the small creature, sloping forward, slowly, so as not to scare him. “All animals have parents to care for them.”
“So where are they?” asked Zippo, putting his hand up to his eyes as he scanned the horizon like the worried captain of a sailing ship watching for drifting icebergs.
“I am not sure that you will be able to see them from down there,” said B-Jay, “but nice try!”
“B-Jay is right,” said Maxwell, feeling confident that he had a good idea. “We should get Aruna to fly overhead to find them.” He wagged his tail, dislodging the snow from a nearby bush.
“For once your suggestion is quite logical,” mentioned Cressida with surprise, “but there is one small flaw to your suggestion. The rabbit field is miles away and, even if Aruna was to fly there, he would not know which of the rabbits were this little one's parents.” Her head flicked around sharply as the snow fell from the bush.
“Couldn’t he ask around?” asked Digger Bo, joining in the discussion. His wet nose twitching every time he took a breath.
“That would seem prudent until you realize that they would disappear into the ground long before he got anywhere near enough to ask, not wishing to become his dinner. Seeing as owls do indeed eat rabbits,” she continued, curling into a warm, protective ball.
“That might be a problem,” said B-Jay, his windshield wipers flicking at a few flakes of falling snow that drifted down from the cottonwood tree.
“Couldn’t he explain that we are all friends and friends help friends and don’t eat friends?” questioned Maxwell. “Wasn’t that how we solved the problem for our friend Hudson the Hop Toad?” As he said this, he tried to imitate the “Bwuuurp” sound that the toad liked to utter, failing miserably as his throat choked on unexpected spittle.
“Why don’t we just ask the rabbit where he lives?” inquired Cressida, pruning herself through the boredom of the current debate.
“I tried that already,” said Digger Bo, huddling up to the rabbit, thinking he might be cold. “I tried asking the rabbit its name, where it lives, and if it can tumble, but all it does is hop around all the time. I don’t think it understands me. That is, when I could get it to finally stand still.”
“Now you know how we feel,” chuckled Cressida under her breath, looking directly at Digger Bo. “Oh, the irony!”
“Maybe it is Canadian like Hudson was. We need Aruna to translate. Can you do that, Aruna?” asked Zippo, pulling his hat down to warm his chilly antennae before breathing warmth into his gloves. Zippo didn’t seem to be enjoying the snow; it seemed as if his joints creaked more once the temperature dropped below a certain point.
“I doubt that the rabbit came all the way from Canada like Hudson did. It is more likely that he came from the rabbit fields near the farm over yonder,” said Aruna, flapping his wings with purpose, trying to circulate the warm blood to his wingtips. He knocked more snow from an adjacent branch as he did so.
“So we don’t even know his name, let alone where he lives or who his parents are?” reasoned Maxwell, snapping his jowls at yet another fog cloud, rather concerned at the level of predicament before them. “It seems like we have many problems to solve this time.” Maxwell didn’t seem to be disturbed by the snow, his thick coat keeping him warm.
“Well, if he hops around a lot, we could name him Hopscotch,” suggested Zippo, excited at trying to solve one of the dilemmas while jogging on the spot before doing star jumps.
“Oh, I like that name,” said Maxwell, his tail making a dull thud on the hard ground as it thwacked three times. “That’s a good choice, but I vote that we call him Thumper.”
“I think you have been watching too much Bambi on Netflix,” said Cressida, suddenly joining in the conversation again from her huddled posture. “I think he should be named Ludwig Gustav Clawhauser Fritz the 2nd.”
No one said anything immediately until Aruna decided to risk it by asking, “Why Ludwig Gustav whatever Fritz the 2nd? Why not the 1st?”
“My son was Ludwig the 1st,” responded Cressida quietly, “so that wouldn’t make any sense.”
“Wait—what!” they all cried in unison, filling the crisp air with several fog clouds. “You have a son?”
“How come we never knew this before now?” asked Digger Bo, still hugging the rabbit and thinking that his surprise now paled in comparison to Cressida’s secret.
The rabbit sat there, enjoying the warmth of the badger's bristly coat as they all continued to work through the cat’s revelation.
“Well,” said Digger Bo after a few minutes, a twitch rippling down his spine as he spoke, “as I found him, I get to name him. That is the rule of finding things.”
“I think you’ll find that happens with constellations and stuff. He is a living being,” said B-Jay, turning his heater down to clear the condensation from his windshield. “I know this because my owner has Google and he tells me interesting stuff when we have passengers, or when he is on the phone. It is surprising the things I have learned over the years. For example, we could ask Alexa for a good name for him.”
“Oh, that is another good name,” said Maxwell, his eyes opening wide in approval as his tail gave another thwack. “But isn’t Alexa a girl’s name? That wouldn’t work if it is.”
“Oh, for the love of all things holy!” pleaded Cressida, unsure whether a dog could even pretend to be that silly in real life. His last comment caused her to lift her head from her paws.
“Well, I have already chosen a name for him,” asserted Digger Bo loudly, hugging the rabbit even closer, flicking a small flake from her coat with a gentle swipe from his paw. “I name him Fred.”
“Okay,” said B-Jay, trying to get the situation back on track before it spiraled from the seriousness of the problem that faced them. “Now he has a name, what are we going to do with Fred?” He tilted his side mirrors toward them to initiate a solution.
Aruna spoke before Digger Bo had a chance to reply, seemingly knowing what the badger was about to say.
“Yes, we can call him Fred if it makes life easier, but just because you have given the rabbit a name does not mean you can keep him. He is a living creature and there is great responsibility in looking after something that is alive.” He clicked his beak twice as if to suggest that what he was going to say next was of great importance before continuing. “It needs proper care, it needs food, constant attention, and many other things for its proper well-being until it grows into an adult and can look after itself.” More snow fell from above, narrowly missing him as he shuffled along the slippery branch, readjusting his grip.
“Of course!” said Zippo loudly, clapping his gloved hands together in a short clap. “Aruna is right, we need to feed it—I mean Fred. He must be hungry. Aruna, do you know what rabbits eat?”
“That’s easy,” said Maxwell proudly. “Even I can answer that question. I am a dog and I eat dog food—he is a rabbit and therefore he eats rabbit food. Stands to reason that I am right!”
“Genius,” chuckled Cressida to herself, pruning her cold paw with a warm tongue.
“Thank you!” replied the dog proudly, having overheard her. His ears flicked up affectionately and his eyes twinkled softly from where they had been watering.
“I say we climb aboard B-Jay and go to a supermarket,” said Zippo, leaping onto B-Jay's dashboard enthusiastically before pointing toward town. Feeling that it was warm in the car he proceeded to sit, leaning his head over the air vent, smiling as he felt the heat trickle upwards.
B-Jay noticed what Zippo was doing and for a brief moment he ignored the rabbit, paying attention to his friend. Suddenly a thought popped into his head that he found hard to resist. He went with it, suddenly turning the heater to maximum, his wipers jiggling in amusement as Zippo's hat flew upwards due to sudden pressure change. Zippo wasn’t startled and didn’t leap up to retrieve his hat. He just sat there for a moment making ‘mmmmm’ noises. B-Jay chuckled momentarily, then turned his attention back to the situation at hand.
“Have you ever seen an owl, a badger, an ant, and a dog shopping for rabbit food in Albertsons?” inquired Cressida mockingly, between licks, waiting for B-Jay to finish messing around before responding to Zippo’s comment.
“Cressida is right,” replied Aruna, keeping a straight face while blinking. “We need to go to PetSmart.”
Cressida gave an approving grin at the owl’s clever retort and replied, “Touché!”
Maxwell stared at them more confused than ever, his tongue hanging to the side of his mouth as he furled his eyebrows.
“Ooooo, that reminds me of a joke!” said Zippo, retrieving his baseball cap and once he had placed it back where it belonged, he began. “Two big, ferocious lions were pushing their shopping carts through Walmart when one turned to the other and said, ‘Is it me, or does it seem quiet in here today?’”
As he delivered the punchline, he struck a pose and looked at them all, waiting for the sound of raucous, uncontrolled laughter. Cressida chuckled to herself, trying to contain any sense of amusement. Everyone else just sat there waiting for the rest of the joke.
“So which one of us should we choose to care for Fred?” asked Digger Bo, pretending he was ready to sever his attachment while seeming more concerned at Fred’s well-being than the seemingly unfinished joke.
“Well, firstly it needs a home. Secondly, it needs food. Food and shelter are the basic needs we should decide on first,” replied Cressida, giving an authoritative glance at the rabbit.
“Well, there is one thing we might be overlooking,” mentioned Aruna. “It would seem that one of us has already been a parent and would understand best of all what is entailed with such a task. Looking after another living creature is one of the biggest responsibilities in life. It seems wise to me to let someone who has already experienced such a task to undertake it once more!” He looked toward Cressida as he said this, snapping his beak and giving a sharp hoot, causing another clump of snow to dislodge from an overhead branch.
As he finished the last of the sentence, his head spun around quickly, not because of the falling snow but because he was distracted by something in the bushes to the side of the tree.
“I agree,” said B-Jay, along with Zippo, who was nodding his approval in time to some unheard rhythm.
Before Maxwell could lend his support and Cressida could even realize that they were talking about her—such was her attention to her pruning—a figure came bounding out of the bushes, giving them all a start.
“Where have you been, child? I have been looking for you everywhere!” said a larger, gray rabbit appearing before them. “Your father is going crazy with worry. Well, what do you have to say for yourself, Jasmine?” The gray rabbit twitched its ears, thumping the hard dirt-packed snow with a foot that expected a response.
The baby rabbit leaped to its feet, bounding round and round, happy at her mother’s appearance even if it was scolding and a tad angry.
“I’m sorry, Mum, but the snow came and I got lost, and I found a burrow to shelter in, and there was a badger who was nice and kind, and an amusing cat, and an owl, and an ant, and a wonderful red Beetle car called B-Jay, and a rather strange dog, and I lost track of time!” replied the baby rabbit as her mother licked her face with concern and relief. Her eyes closed at the feel of her mother’s touch.
“She can talk?” said Zippo, amazed at the sound of her sudden speech.
“He’s a she?” responded Digger Bo, feeling foolish.
“You are her mother?” said Cressida as a half-question, half-statement, rising to meet her, her tail curling at the end as she walked.
“Yes I am,” replied the mother rabbit, “and I guess I owe you my gratitude for keeping my daughter safe. Thank you.” She twitched, blinking toward Cressida. “But we must be going now; we have a long way to travel home and there is more snow looming on the horizon. Here!” she said, her hand stretching outwards to offer them a carrot. “Please accept this gift with my gratitude. Goodbye!”
Before anyone could object, mother and daughter bounded away quickly in the distance, small fluffy tails bobbing as they hopped. Any trace of the small, white rabbit, called Jasmine, was soon lost as she blended into the snowy white backdrop of the field beyond.
“Well, I guess we can be pleased that ended positively, even if a little abruptly,” said Cressida as the others watched the silhouettes disappear from view.
Aruna agreed, bobbing up and down on the branch, more than a little relieved at the outcome.
“I am going to miss Fred!” said Digger Bo with a very sad voice, his head hanging low as he sadly dragged a claw in circles through the snow.
“I don’t see how a carrot is a fair exchange,” stated Maxwell with a confused look on his face, still wondering what had just happened. His left ear flicked and twitched.
They all laughed, relieved and also pleased that Jasmine would now be okay.
“I know,” said B-Jay, the ever-optimistic Beetle car, trying to raise the mood with a toot. “Maybe we can end this unsettling adventure by building a snowman. And we can use the carrot for his nose.”
They all agreed this was a fantastic idea, and even the sad Digger Bo managed a few tumbles, even if they did lack their usual height. He had never made a snowman before, so it really was the best distraction for his current emotional state. When they had finished the snowman, B-Jay said his goodbyes. What another great adventure, he thought to himself as he drove away from his friends, heading homewards. Even if they didn't get around to planning Halloween.
As he drove away, he didn’t hear Maxwell, who had turned to Zippo saying, “So you never said what the lions bought from Walmart?”
“I will answer that question when we have our next adventure,” replied the ant with a quizzical look, before turning to give the snowman a subtle wink.
The snowman grinned back with a crooked smile.