The Constant Rabbit

‘Not very practical and we don’t actually need to be disguised,’ I said, ‘and besides, while Mrs Thatcher and John Major masks are still obtainable, those of Neville Chamberlain and David Lloyd George are almost impossible to come by.’

‘I heard you could paint William Shatner masks to represent almost anyone.’

I’d heard that too, but didn’t say so.

‘There’s issues of being able to see out clearly enough,’ I said.

‘Ninety seconds!’ called out Mrs Thatcher.

‘You’re in luck,’ I said, picking a couple of dusty volumes from the shelves. ‘Are either of these the ones you wanted?’

I showed her the covers, which were written in Rabbity script,¹ and unintelligible to me, or indeed any humans. Even after fifty-five years, no human had ever mastered anything but the most basic tenets of their language, verbal or written. Attempts by humans to converse in their mother tongue were usually met with peals of hysterical laughter, and remain one of the mainstays of rabbit comedy stand-up, along with jokes about ears, litter sizes, the broader etymological impact of ‘cuniculus’ and the hilarity that ensues when entering the wrong burrow by accident, at night, slightly drunk, during the mating season.

‘Oooh!’ said Connie, grasping one of the books tightly. ‘Planet of the Lagomorphs. That’s a find.’

I wasn’t an expert on the whole Rabbit Literature Retelling Project of the early eighties, but I did know that out of the hundred or so titles, only one was ever banned. When you retold Planet of the Apes the dominant life form was the rabbit. It became something of a political hot potato, but not, crucially, amongst rabbits. The fledgling United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party declared the novel’s central theme to be ‘not conducive to good human/rabbit relations’ – and lobbied successfully to have it withdrawn and pulped.

‘Must have missed the dragnet,’ I said.

‘I’ll give it a read to the family,’ said Connie with a smile, ‘might give us some ideas.’

Rabbits rarely read to themselves as they saw books more as a performance than a solitary occupation. Why, they asked, do anything by yourself that could be shared with others?

‘Banned book?’ said Neville Chamberlain, her shelving complete and now back on the scene. She clasped hold of the volume and tried to take it away, but Connie didn’t relinquish her grip, and they both stood there, each with their hands/paws on the book, tugging backwards and forwards.

‘It was on the shelf,’ said Connie Rabbit, ‘so free to be loaned. That’s how libraries work.’

‘Don’t tell me how libraries work,’ said Neville Chamberlain, who was now talking less like someone eager to appease, and more like the Mrs Mallett reactionary she was, ‘I’ve been a library volunteer since before you munched your first carrot.’

It was a dumb insult, and they both knew it.

‘Wow,’ said Connie, ‘you got me.’

‘Forty-five seconds!’ called out Mrs Thatcher, and I was now in a quandary. If Connie now was anything like the Connie I knew then, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and if we overran it would be a Code 4-22: ‘Opening Time Deficit’, which meant anything over the six minutes would be docked on the next library opening. I glanced towards where the two Library Opening Times Compliance Officers were staring at us from the door, in the same manner vultures might regard an unwell zebra.

‘Mr Major?’ said Neville Chamberlain, using her Seventeenth-Century-School-Ma’am-That-Must-Be-Obeyed voice. ‘Our library is a special place and not to be disrespected.’

‘How is it being disrespected?’ asked Connie in an even tone. ‘Really, I’d like to know.’

‘You have a serious attitude problem,’ said Mrs Mallett, taking instant umbrage at being questioned directly by a lower animal.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Connie, ‘how is the library being disrespected – ma’am?’

There was a sudden unpleasant hush. Shock, anticipation of violence, confusion – maybe all three. I took a deep breath. Upset one Mallett and you upset them all. Mind you, the Malletts were always upset about something. Politics, local government, socialists, the price of onions. When How to Cook a Wild Potato went from the BBC to Channel Four they couldn’t talk about anything else for months. Irrespective, I took my Librarying seriously and I’d never been a huge fan of the Malletts – and a chance to piss them off with the added bonus of plausible deniability should never be missed. I paused for a moment, then turned to Connie.

‘Do you have a library card?’

‘I do,’ she said.

‘Then the loan goes ahead.’

‘Terrific,’ said Mrs Mallett, shedding all vestiges of Neville Chamberlain completely, ‘so we’re just going to start handing out books to every bunny that walks in the door?’

‘It’s a library, Isadora,’ I said, ‘we loan out books. And “bunny” isn’t really an acceptable term any more.’

She laughed in a mocking fashion.