An Escapade Involving Bunnies

On Friday afternoon, two fat bunnies appeared in our neighbor's driveway -- one white with brown spots, one jet black. This was at the end of a long, tiring week for at least two households on the block. Highlights included computer snafus, a dead dishwasher, work deadlines & traumas, a school camping trip, a 30-hour puking episode, and yet another construction setback on the basement project from hell.

After knocking on a couple of nearby doors to see if anyone would claim these lapine visitors, Juan spent some time stalking them around the yard with a net, to no avail. Nobody was really sure what we would do with the bunnies if we caught them, but we figured they'd surely be eaten by raccoons if they were left outside overnight. (This solicitous concern for the bunnies' safety was belied by at least one muttered reference to "stew.")

Pretty soon the Mead Street Gang were on the case, approaching with varying degrees of stealth, peering under cars to spy on the cowering bunnies, proffering carrots, shushing each other viciously -- then shouting with glee when one of the bunnies emerged into the open, causing it to sprint immediately back under the nearest car. A small group of adult observers lounged on the stoop across the street, receiving stentorian updates from four-year-old Ioan as he shuttled back and forth to the kitchen for more carrots.

Josie was dispatched to Ronnie's house around the corner, in case these were the bunnies he had reported missing (presumed dead) a couple of weeks before. Menna and Ioan journeyed around the block to the house across the alley behind Juan's, to see if those people might have lost a couple of bunnies. There they met a friendly young man hauling two bags of hay up his front steps. Yes, he did have a fat black bunny. Yes, he also had an even fatter white bunny with brown spots. He supposed he'd better come have a look.

By the time he squeezed through the back fence into Juan's yard, the Mead Streeters had been joined by Ronnie and his mom, lured over by the unlikely possibility that their bunnies had survived two weeks in the wild. They had recovered from their disappointment enough to join in the continued capture efforts. Eventually the kids managed to flush the white bunny out from under the car, right into Ronnie's mother's arms. After some wistful soothing of the trembling creature, she handed him over to the friendly young man. He headed back to his own yard, assuring the kids that the black bunny would follow once the white one was back in the hutch.

Then we all went in for dinner. The weekend had begun.

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