there lived a little bunny who was terribly afraid of everything. The poor bunny had narrowly escaped being snatched by a Great Horned Owl, and only by sheer luck had she managed to squirm down a hole just in time to avoid becoming the owl's lunch. As the little bunny huddled shivering in her little bunny den, she promised to never again let that owl get close to her. After all, she could have been killed! So the very next day she went to see the old porcupine, and asked him if she could borrow some of his quills to make herself a coat. The old porcupine gave the bunny some of his quills because porcupines shed them naturally like bunnies shed their hair, and he had lots of them just laying around. Next the little bunny gathered a large pile of thick brown moss from the forest floor and made herself a nice coat from it, sewing it all together with blades of the tall grass that grew in the meadow. Finally, she pushed those porcupine's quills through the moss from the inside so they all poked up sharp on the outside of the coat. “When that wretched owl sees me now,” the little bunny thought smugly to herself, “He will think I am the prickly porcupine and leave me alone.” And it seemed the coat actually worked, for a while. The bunny was able to eat the sweet green leaves in the meadow and the forest glen, and she no longer feared becoming a meal herself. Eventually she even began to think of herself as a porcupine, hanging out with other porcupines, and learning how to act in the same ways that porcupines acted. It wasn't long however till the quill coat began to itch something fierce, and the ends of the quills inside the coat were not at all comfortable rubbing against the bunny's back with every move. To top it all off, she began to get dreadfully hot inside the heavy coat. She had to walk all hunched over too, because the coat was so heavy. Besides, that's how porcupines walked all the time anyway and the little bunny had to fool that old owl into thinking she was one of them. Still the heavy coat bothered the little bunny constantly, and chafed her skin so raw that bits of her fur fell out, and it always made her uncomfortably warm, even for a bunny. But because the poor bunny was so very afraid of the owl, she suffered all the indignities, the itching, the sore spots, and the heat, and tried to make the best of it all. Though her quill coat was a good imitation of porcupine skin, truthfully she didn't make a very good porcupine. One day the bunny was out foraging in her quill coat as she always did. It was a particularly warm day and the coat was really itching and rubbing her neck. As she waddled and hobbled her way along, she came upon a several other bunnies playing in the grass. The little bunny watched how freely those other bunnies romped with each other in their natural skins, and how pretty they all looked in their soft brown fur. She saw how long and sleek and shiny the other bunnies were, not at all like the huddled up porcupine or her own beleaguered skin, and she saw how those other bunnies didn't seem to be afraid of that fearsome owl at all. Then the little bunny grew very, very sad, because deep down inside she knew she wasn't really a porcupine at all and had always known it. She dreamed of playing in her natural bunny skin with all the other bunnies and frolicking as she had watched them do in the tall cool grass. The little bunny thought how her real coat was so much softer and lighter and easier to wear than the heavy and cumbersome quill coat she had made and now only wore for fear of the owl, and how walking around all day wearing it while humped up like a porcupine made her back really hurt. Finally, the little bunny was so hot and so miserable and sore she could not stand it, not a single minute more. Even though she was still quite terrified of the owl, she threw off the big uncomfortable quill coat that by this time had become quite painful for her to wear, and immediately began hopping about with the other little bunnies in the forest glen. “Even if that scary owl comes and kills me,” the little bunny vowed solemnly, “I will be true to myself always, and be the bunny I was born to be from now on.” Just then, that Great Horned Owl swooped down out of the trees like a shooting star, bearing straight down on the hapless bunnies. All the bunnies instantly froze as motionless as death, their muscles tensed and ready to run in whatever direction would be required to make good their escape. But instead of snatching any of those defenseless rabbits in the glen, that owl grabbed the discarded old quill coat that the little bunny had made and swiftly bore it off to the sky, clutched in his powerful talons. By the time the owl had realized his mistake, all the little bunnies had scampered off into the bushes. You see, the owl was thinking all the while he had grabbed himself a baby porcupine, for owls take porcupines the same as bunnies, and that awful coat hadn't made the little bunny even the tiniest bit safer after all. Then the bunny knew in her little bunny heart that she had done exactly the right thing by getting rid of that old coat. She knew that if she hadn't, she surely wouldn't be here this day to tell about it. And so the little bunny finally learned how to not be afraid of just being herself. And the sore spots from wearing the quill coat healed in time, and her fur grew back and glistened in the sun as she bounced and played in the long grass, just like real bunnies are supposed to do.
copyright 2009 © Chloe d. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Notes on “A Rabbit's Tale”:
Do porcupines shed their quills? “Porcupines have muscles at the base of each quill that allow them to stand up when the animal is excited or alarmed. Like all hairs, quills do shed, and when the porcupines shake, loose quills can fly off (but without deadly force).” From: http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-porcupine.html See also: http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=2417&o=0&l=dir&q=do+porcupines+shed+their+quills Do Owls eat porcupines? “Great-horned owls are one of the few raptors that can eat porcupines, because they can swoop down silently and catch their prey before its quills go up.” From: http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/cityplus/story.html?id=7e599777-b419-4967-9f3b-e348be517e6c See also: http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=2417&o=0&l=dir&q=Do+Owls+eat+porcupines
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