Farewell to Raymond

Easter seems like a long time ago, but I have included a lovely painting by Sebastian in South Africa in this the final chapter of Rattus Runs Amok.  Also featured is our wonderful Easter Bunny aka Uncle Stephen. The original rat came to a soggy end in our garden...I wonder if Raymond will survive? Thanks for reading. 😃

Chapter Ten: Raymond Meets the Easter Bunny
Raymond could not have moved even if he’d wanted to; he was frozen with fear. The buzzard was hanging low in the sky and had spotted him with its beady eyes. Raymond braced himself for the attack and when it came he felt a talon clutching his soft fur and hoisting him into the air. Below them, the field was getting smaller and smaller.

So this is what it feels like to fly, thought Raymond. They were right over the garden now when suddenly the unthinkable happened: the buzzard dropped him and swooped down, picking up a baby rabbit, that had hopped out of the bushes, instead. It was all over in seconds: the rabbit was flying away and he was falling, falling…

He plummeted through a gentle broom bush and did a belly flop on top of something very soft and spongy. It was Orange Cat who was settling down for the night. She was not best pleased.

‘Get off me,’ she mewed. ‘I’m the one who’s supposed to have nine lives.’

Raymond lay there breathing in the scent of coconut as delicate yellow petals drifted round him like snowflakes. He crawled back to his nest and licked a puncture wound in his side. As he fell asleep he thought how glad he was to be alive.
In his dream Raymond was being held down by something heavy and a hooked beak was about to dismember him. He struggled awake. It was late morning and Smudge was frolicking around excitedly.

‘I was having a nightmare,’ said Raymond. ‘What did I miss?’
‘I think it’s Easter,’ said Smudge. Something else Raymond did not know about.
‘Himself has just put a sign on the gate and Missus Daisy is out in her boots carrying a basket of eggs.’
‘Let’s go and see,’ said Raymond. They set up a lookout post in a gnarled elder shrub, concealed by luscious black berries.
‘This place smells,’ said Raymond.
‘God’s stinking tree,’ said Smudge and then he puffed out his chest and recited:

Bour tree, bour tree: crooked rung 

Never straight and never strong; 

Ever bush and never tree 

Since our Lord was nailed to thee. 

‘I don’t know what you’re saying,’ said Raymond, confused, ‘but it sounds depressing.’
‘It’s a poem,’ said Smudge, ‘about Easter and the elder. I think the story turns out all right in the end, though.’
‘I don’t understand how you know things,’ said Raymond, ‘and what have eggs got to do with it?’
‘Now that I don’t know,’ said Smudge, ‘but they’re fun to find.’

Missus Daisy was wandering round carefully hiding colourful eggs behind clumps of daffodils, under thick hedges and shoulder high in trees.
‘She makes it too easy,’ said Smudge. ‘Look, she’s putting out little signposts to show the way.’
‘But why is she doing this for us?
‘It’s not for us, silly. It’s for them.’

Two cars were pulling into the driveway spilling small children from doors right and left. At the same time, the visitors tumbled out of the house with shrill shouts of welcome.
‘Oh no, not him,’ said Raymond as he watched Georgie carefully lifting something out of the boot of the car and carrying it into the garage. It was some kind of complicated wooden contraption with a platform, a lever and a pulley.
‘I wonder what he’s up to?’ said Raymond.

The two little girls, Ruthie and Rose, were dressed alike in pink frocks and pretty bonnets. Rose was waving a stick with ribbons attached, twirling round and round. Someone was blowing bubbles and Ruthie was spinning too trying to catch them.

Joy and Bastian were conspiring together in a corner, trying to pull a long worm out of the grass while Nate and Teddy chased a beautiful butterfly.
‘What a cheerful scene!’ said Raymond.

Adults were calling the children indoors for lunch and through an open window Raymond and Smudge could hear the clatter of cutlery, the scraping of chairs and the laughter of family.
‘Now!’ said Smudge, scampering across the grass. Raymond followed him into the dense undergrowth in the far corner. They double checked they could not be seen from the house, then they located the first of the eggs. Smudge unwrapped it with his tiny paws, cracked it against his teeth and handed Raymond a piece of the shell. Raymond sniffed it.

‘Chocolate?’ he said. ‘You didn’t say the eggs were chocolate.’
Raymond loved chocolate but he couldn’t help feeling a little bit guilty about stealing the children’s treats.
‘We won’t eat them all,’ said Smudge, tucking into a second egg and licking his lips.
The partners in crime found and gobbled ten or more eggs and were starting to feel rather sick.
‘I think we’ve had enough,’ said Raymond.

‘Indeed you have,’ sounded a deep voice.
Lolloping across the lawn came the biggest rabbit Raymond had ever seen. It was whiter than white with fluffy pink ears, big teeth and a wide mouth.

 

As usual, Smudge leapt into a tree leaving Raymond to face the music.
Raymond was perched on the lower branches of a magnificent pink magnolia whose velvety flowers were budding into crescents reaching for the sky. He had gorged on milky chocolate and did not really want to run away…again.

He took off round the side of the house with the white rabbit in hot pursuit, literally. He seemed to be struggling to breathe and Raymond could smell the sweat. When he looked back, the rabbit was bent double groaning with the exertion. ‘It’s the Easter Bunny!’ squealed Joy. The children came running out of the house to embrace their furry friend.

Smudge was nowhere to be seen so when Raymond came out of hiding he made his way back to the oil tank alone. All in all it had been a good day: he had escaped death, made a safe landing, learned about Easter, stuffed his stomach with chocolate and outwitted Himself once again.
‘He’s not in great shape,’ said Himself, shaking his head. ‘One beer too many, I fear.’
‘No,’ gasped the white rabbit, ‘there was a…’
‘Never mind,' said Himself, ‘let’s get on with the Easter egg hunt.’

Missus Daisy was distributing little plastic buckets to the girls while the boys ran on ahead, searching for the sign that read START HERE.
He passed by the front of the open garage and something yummy caught his eye. Georgie had placed a square of peanut chocolate on the little platform of his wooden toy. A peace offering?

Maybe I have misjudged him, thought Raymond. He’s a kind boy, after all. I think I have room for just one more nibble before bedtime...                                                                           
THE END