Jasper Fforde - The Constant Rabbit

This one was a rabbit.

‘Fudd’ – as in ‘Elmer Fudd’ – was the usual pejorative rabbit term for a human. There were also: Pinko, Fleshy, Homo, Bingo and Rupert. There were others in Rabbity, too, usually reproductive slurs regarding evolutionarily disadvantageous rates of ovulation and shockingly low litter sizes.

The new rabbit Intelligence Officer had a startled look which made it appear that he’d been caught in car headlamps some time in the seventies and was still suffering the trauma. He would have been Labstock owing to his white fur which looked matted and ill-kempt, and he was dressed in an embroidered waistcoat covered by a long duster jacket that had been patched several times with brown corduroy. Rabbits abhorred waste and would often use an item of clothing until it fell off them.

More shockingly, when he removed his battered brown derby hat, there were only two healed-over stumps where his long ears would have sprouted from his head. He’d been, in rabbit terminology, ‘cropped’. His fellow rabbits had meted out the worst possible punishment for his unknown and presumably heinous crime and banished him from the rabbithood. Most rabbits took the honourable way out and dug themselves a lonely burrow in which to expire – but a few, consumed by humiliation and loss, wandered the country as outcasts, attempting to find absolution in any way they could. Some, like this one, flipped to the other side, knowing they could not be hated any more than they were already, but still knowing they would have to wear the burden of their sins for all to see, every day, for ever .

‘A rabbit without ears,’ a rabbit would say, ‘is less of a rabbit than nothing.’

One of the officers might have stared for longer than was polite, for the earless rabbit said in a low and unusually threatening growl: ‘What are you staring at, Fudd?’

‘Nothing,’ said the officer.

‘This is Agent Douglas AY-002,’ said Flemming, introducing the cropped rabbit warmly and to low gasps of recognition from the room, ‘vouched for by the Senior Group Leader, no less, and transferred from the Swindon office. Treat him as you would a human,’ she added, enthused by having a rabbit onside against the rabbit, ‘his record is exemplary, his dislike of rabbits well known.’

I too had heard of this rabbit before, though I had not met him. All rabbits who had turned against their own were cropped, but that wasn’t in itself enough. To be fully trusted, rabbits in the employ of the Taskforce would be expected to demonstrate their anti-rabbit credentials, and in this respect AY-002’s reputation preceded him. It was said his usual method for extracting intelligence from any recalcitrant brethren was via a hammer – varying sizes, from toffee all the way up to claw, to match levels of coercion.

‘Agent Whizelle,’ said Whizelle, introducing himself, ‘Intel, Identity Fraud. We met at the interrogation training weekend last year. I enjoyed your talk immensely – the one where you expounded on your “tie the suspect into a hessian sack and beat them with sticks” technique for extracting information.’

‘Morris dancer’s sticks,’ corrected Douglas. ‘It’s an important point, and I thank you. I thought your talk with the Senior Group Leader about the MegaWarren project saving upwards of a hundred million a year by bringing all five colonies together was particularly enlightening, and not before time.’

‘Kind,’ said Whizelle, ‘very kind.’

‘This is Peter Knox,’ said Flemming, beckoning me over, ‘our Spotter today.’

Douglas AY-002 gazed at me suspiciously.

‘I’ve seen your file,’ he said after a pause. ‘They say you’re talented, but hobbled by an unwarranted sense of fair play.’

‘I think it’s important to play the safe game,’ I managed to mumble, ‘to stop RabCoT making a fool of itself.’

He stared at me for a moment.

‘Is that all it is?’

‘That’s all it is.’

He paused again, then clasped my one hand in his two paws, the traditional human/rabbit greeting, as handshakes were tricky to accomplish without thumbs.

‘I won’t let you down, Mr AY-002.’

‘I hope not,’ said the earless rabbit, ‘and you can call me Lugless; every other Fudd does.’

‘I’d be happy to call you anything you want,’ I said, trying to be accommodating.

‘And I’d be happy if you didn’t speak to me at all,’ said Lugless, ‘but I have a feeling I’m going to be disappointed. The Senior Group Leader told me to report directly to him if you get pointlessly sentimental over our little furry friends.’

‘Lugless is a straight talker,’ said Flemming in the awkward silence that followed. ‘Agent AY-002, let me introduce you to the rest of team.’

‘You come highly recommended,’ said Sergeant Boscombe as they shook hand/paws. ‘Your kind loathe you.’

‘They aren’t my kind,’ said Lugless in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘They took everything from me and I owe them nothing.’

‘Good to hear,’ said Boscombe, and introduced the others. Lugless greeted them all in a distant yet businesslike manner, but didn’t direct any terse words towards any of the others. I had the sudden worrying realisation that I was on Operations today to be tested. If my loyalty to the department remained in question, I was probably finished, in spite of my skill at spotting.

‘Take a seat, everyone,’ said Lugless, switching on the overhead projector and pulling a bundle of acetate sheets from his case. Rabbits – all rabbits, not just ones who worked in Compliance – despised PowerPoint presentations, and not because it meant fiddling around with paw-unfriendly keyboards or pointers. No, it was rather the rabbit’s wholly practical approach to technology. If something worked perfectly adequately and did not actually need to be replaced, they’d stick with it. Most of the colonies still used fax machines, printing presses and manual telephone switchboards, although this was probably not just a technological issue, but the fact that rabbits like to gossip, and manual switchboards made eavesdropping not only easy, but irresistible.

‘An unidentified Labstock rabbit,’ said Lugless placing the first acetate on the projector, ‘similar to thousands like him. For the purposes of this operation, he’ll be known as John Flopsy 13 13. ‘John Flopsy’ was the generic term to describe an unidentified rabbit, similar to ‘John Doe’ for humans. The female equivalent, logically enough, was ‘Jane Flopsy’. The long-term usage of the word made ‘Flopsy’ slang for a rabbit of a criminal tendency, or often, any rabbit at all. 7770.’

We stared at the nondescript white rabbit that had come up on the screen.

‘What’s he done?’ asked one of the compliance officers.

‘It’s not what he’s done,’ said Lugless, ‘or about what he will do. It’s about what he knows. Deep intel says the Bunty might be hanging out in Colony One, not twenty-five miles from where we’re standing right now.’

The ‘Bunty’ to whom he referred would be the Venerable Bunty, 14 14. Her spiritual name was actually ‘B’uuntii’ but she was known by everyone, rabbits included, as ‘Bunty’. The closest translation of her name would be ‘I can see clearly now’, which is also the first line of the rabbit’s anthem and a Johnny Nash single, although it is not thought the two are related. the rabbit’s spiritual leader for the past decade and a rabbit of considerable influence. Her whereabouts were a closely guarded secret as Smethwick had once said in public that ‘if we had Bunty in our hands, the rabbits would do anything we asked of them’. She remained a rabbit of great interest to the authorities, but had always evaded capture. Quite how she had done this was a mystery, as she routinely moved from colony to colony in order to offer spiritual and culinary guidance, as Lago, the Grand Matriarch, was as big on home cooking as she was on metaphysical well-being. It didn’t help that no one knew what she looked like, and she usually gave sermons in disguise so few rabbits knew either – insurance against any rabbits who could be turned by the Compliance Taskforce.