The Constant Rabbit

‘This is important,’ said Whizelle, walking over to sit on the edge of my desk, ‘so we’re keeping you in the loop: the Rabbit Hostility Evaluation Action Team have declared the LitterBomb threat to have amplified from Amber, “Attack Probably Planned, We Think”, to Red, “Attack Imminent, We’re Guessing”, and whilst we’re not saying Constance Rabbit is involved, she’s ripe to play a part. She’s just rented a house with seven bedrooms and even the most cursory of glances at her Co-op loyalty card buying patterns reveals a strong propensity for two-for-one offers – an act that is long associated with stockpiling.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘We have also observed Major Rabbit at B&Q,’ added Lugless, mistaking my comment as interest rather than scepticism, ‘looking at spades and forks and seeds and suchlike.’

‘Right,’ said Whizelle, as though their guilt had already been established, ‘potentially growing extra food for those hungry, outnumbering mouths – the red flags are fluttering right under our noses and we’d be idiots to ignore them. Like the Senior Group Leader said, you’re to keep your ear to the ground as regards your next-door neighbours and report back if you see or hear anything suspicious. Get it?’

‘Got it.’

‘Good.’

He returned to his desk to pick up a paper bag of sugared woodlice, something weasels found particularly tasty, then left the office. Lugless carried on staring at me for a while. It was one of those hard stares, the sort a hungry spaniel might use to bore holes in a fridge once known to have contained a single sausage.³⁹

He only stopped staring when the phone rang. He picked it up and, after listening for a few seconds, told the caller he would be there presently, then chose the heaviest hammer from his desk drawer and trotted out of the office. I gave him two minutes, then left the office myself to see whether Fenton DG-6721 actually was in custody, and if so, whether there was anything I could do. I headed towards the canteen first, the most likely place to find someone ‘in the know’ regarding who was in custody, but I didn’t need to go that far as the rabbit riot had already begun.

Rabbit Riot

Rabbits are especially good at crowd-crunching calculations. Most of the team are used as memory, with key calculators doing sums, and three others dividing the mechanics of the calculation amongst the others. With a little practice, a team of two hundred rabbits can calculate the square root of any given four-digit number to fifty-four decimal places in under six minutes.

To be honest, it was only dubbed a ‘riot’ later, by the leader writer of The Actual Truth, UKARP and the Compliance Taskforce. To anyone else, the rabbit themselves and even a dispassionate observer, ‘super non-violent silent protest with maths’ would be closer to the mark. Outside the building were eight rabbits standing in a line and staring impassively at the Taskforce headquarters.

‘What’s up?’ I asked someone in the lobby.

‘Some complete and utter twat put Fenton DG-6721 on an arrest list, and it’s kicked off a riot. Pisses me off totally. The building will be put on lockdown, and I have the finals of the all-Hereford bell-ringing competition this evening.’

‘There’s only eight of them,’ I said, looking out of the one-way glass into the street, ‘probably just a flash in the pan. No, wait, I can see some more.’

To the right and left more rabbits were arriving, alerted over the grapevine as to what was going on. They’d dropped everything, tied the traditional protest bandana loosely around the base of their ears and taken their place next to their colleagues.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Whizelle, who had just appeared from the records office. The disappointed bell-ringer – I think he was from Ethics – told Whizelle what was happening and I decided to creep back to the office and keep my head down. My name was on this. I’d been stitched up by Lugless good and proper.

Toby was already watching the riot unfold when I got back upstairs as our office gave an unimpeded view down Gaol Street to the left and right. In ten minutes there were twenty rabbits and that doubled in another half an hour.

‘It will be impossible to get a decent cup of coffee in town right now,’ said Toby, who always thought of practicalities, ‘let alone a sandwich.’