Jasper Fforde - The Constant Rabbit

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s your line. In the script.’

‘Oh,’ I said, and in something of a panic looked down and simply read the first line I could see.

‘I’ve been impregnated by your uncle,’ I said, ‘and it feels like it might be octuplets.’

‘I think we’ve missed a page,’ she murmured, taking my script and flipping back a leaf and tapping the first line. ‘Here we are.’

‘You’re very attractive,’ I said, reading the script, ‘but this won’t work.’

‘Yes, you say that,’ she said, ‘but it can’t have escaped your attention that there has been something between us, something stronger than both of us – a mutual attraction that transcends the tiresome normalities of everyday life.’

I didn’t say anything, and she blinked at me.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I said.

‘Say whatever you feel,’ she whispered, closing her eyes and leaning forward.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I really don’t know what to say. I think your ink cartridge ran out.’

I held up the script by way of explanation.

‘Oh!’ she said, looking flustered. ‘Kent must have been using the printer again. Drat that boy.’ She then added: ‘Is it hot in here?’

‘It is quite hot,’ I said.

‘Then you don’t mind if I remove my cardig …’

She’d stopped speaking because there was a knock at the front door.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘It’s Doc.’

‘Isn’t he in the Middle East?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘then maybe Rupert.’

‘Isn’t that affair finished?’

‘No, no, not that Rupert. Another Rupert. He told Doc he’d keep an eye on me in case I was planning to initiate a spousal appropriation. How are you with a duelling pistol?’

‘What?’

‘Just my joke,’ she said. ‘Actually, since they’ve knocked on the door, they’re not likely to be a rabbit at all, are they?’

‘Unless,’ I said slowly, ‘they’re a rabbit pretending to be a human in order to put either you or me off guard?’

‘Good point,’ she said. ‘Do you have a cupboard in which I could hide?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes – hiding in cupboards from suspicious partners has a strong tradition in rabbit culture. Really, Peter, this is all totally normal.’

I opened the broom cupboard, and then, after picking a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo out of her bag along with a torch, Connie stepped elegantly inside.

‘Oooh,’ she said, looking around, ‘you have a Henry vacuum cleaner. Any good?’

‘Very good. Not a word now.’

She sat down on the Henry and opened the book, then flicked on the torch. I had the feeling that she might have done this before – many times.

I walked through to the hallway and opened the front door. But it wasn’t a rabbit, or a rabbit pretending to be a human. It was a human: a Toby Mallett sort of human.

Traditionally, carrots were a treat, not a staple, and aside from garden raids and compost heaps, unknown to Wildstock before the Event. While they are harmless in small amounts, overindulgence can lead to issues very similar to alcoholism in humans.

Toby had a lost and empty appearance about him. His T-shirt looked as if it had been pulled through brambles with him still inside as it was badly ripped and his torso was criss-crossed with scratches. His face was streaked with dried dirt, the mud in his blond hair made it look brown, and there was a large and very purple bruise on the side of his head which had partially closed his bloodshot left eye.

‘Toby?’ I said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I have never been better,’ he said, holding on to the door frame to steady himself.

‘You don’t look it. How did you get that bruise?’

‘I walked into a tree,’ he replied unconvincingly.

‘And the scratches?’

‘A … thorny tree.’

‘You know everyone’s looking for you?’

‘I guessed they might be,’ he muttered. ‘Is Pippa in?’

‘She’s gone to the flicks.’

‘Oh,’ he said, then: ‘Will you tell her that I’m sorry and that I’m not worthy? Despite strict RabCoT employment guidelines I’ve been a paid-up member of TwoLegsGood for the past seven years. I’ve hounded twenty-eight rabbits out of their houses and I am most definitely leporiphobic. I’ve also cheated on Pippa several times, usually with Arabella down at the pony club, but there were others.’

None of this was hugely surprising, but it was important he’d been returned. For Toby, obviously, but more importantly, it meant Mr Ffoxe had no justification for initiating a crime sweep through Colony One – and that Bobby definitely had connections to the Underground. I asked Toby whether he wanted to come in and sit down.

‘Better not,’ he said, glancing at the Rabbits’ house next door. ‘I’ve got to go home and explain where I’ve been.’

‘And where have you been?’

‘Oh. Er … on a monumental two-day bender. And visiting my aunt. Nowhere near Colony One, if I knew where it was – which I don’t.’

‘Everyone knows where it is,’ I said. ‘It’s been there years .’

‘Has it?’ he said unconvincingly. ‘Just goes to show.’

He looked around nervously and lowered his voice.

‘They know my every move. They have watchers. Even in the dark. Especially in the dark. It’s those carrots, you know. Will you tell Pippa it’s all over and I’m not worthy? It was one of the conditions of my release that I say that.’

‘I’ll tell her. What were the other conditions?’

‘That I resign from RabCoT, donate my worldly possessions to rabbit charities and then join a monastery and devote my life to prayer and silent contemplation.’

‘Very worthy,’ I said, not imagining for one minute that Toby was monk material.

Relieved at this, he staggered back to his car, which was so muddy it looked as though it had been buried, abandoned, then dug up and hastily cleaned with a yard broom. He fumbled with the key and then fell over, so I walked across, hauled him to his feet, pushed him into the car and drove him the half-mile back to his home, a large Elizabethan half-timbered house, one of the finest in the village.

I rang the doorbell while Toby sat dejectedly on the seat inside the porch. As soon as Mrs Mallett opened the door Toby went into a long and borderline coherent explanation of the ‘bender’ he had allegedly been on, interspersed with sobs and apologies and declarations of how much he’d missed them all, and how he was quitting the Compliance Taskforce and renouncing his membership of TwoLegsGood, even if that meant returning the funny hat and two-handled paddle used in his initiation.

The second Mrs Mallett was clearly relieved her stepson had reappeared, but without a huge amount of enthusiasm. After a few moments Victor Mallett appeared and demanded to know where I’d found him. I explained what I knew, and he looked at Toby, the state he was in, then the state of his car.

‘Kidnapped by friends of yours?’ he demanded. ‘Those sodding rabbits?’

‘I don’t know anything more than what I’ve just told you.’

Victor took a step forward. He was taller than me, a lot stronger and very intimidating.

‘If I ever find out you had a hand in his kidnapping, Knox,’ he said, ‘my revenge will be terrible. Do you understand me?’

‘I had nothing—’

‘Do you understand me?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand you.’

‘Good.’

And he slammed the door in my face. There was a pause, the door reopened, they bundled Toby inside, then slammed the door again. I waited for the door to reopen for the third time and then handed them Toby’s car keys.