This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!
As soon as it started, the spout of flame was over. The mirrors melted, but otherwise, nothing else was harmed, and Mr. Phillips pushed to stand up and brush himself off.
“What was that?” said Mr. Phillips, “Are you all right Mike?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Mike came out of the stall, with his backpack over one shoulder, and the bunny now calms again with white fur. Come to think of it, the red never seemed to show a feeling from the rabbit, though Mike felt it was safe to assume it wouldn’t breathe fire again anytime soon.
“What is that, and where did you get it?”
“I don’t know, I think they are all over the place.”
“Fire breathing rabbits?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s odd enough that it changes color, but the fact that it changes to white instead of brown or gray…”
“What?”
“I wonder if they were lab rabbits somewhere.”
“I don’t know.”
“So, I can’t take it away from you.”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t know where to put it, besides no one else at the school is going to believe we have a fire-breathing rabbit.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I think we’re going to call your father over at the High School.”
Mike swallowed.
Mr. Phillips pulled out his smartphone and slid his finger across it to wake it up. He scrolled through his contacts to find Mike’s dad and hit the call button. A few moments later there was an answer.
“Yes, Mr. Phillips? I assume you have my boy there?”
“Yes, I’ve got him. We are having an interesting morning here.”
“Does it involve a fire-breathing rabbit?”
“How did you know that?”
“Helps that I happen to have one here in my classroom at the moment.”
“There’s more than one of these things?”
“Sure, are you also taking your kids to the science fair this afternoon?” said Destin.
“Yes, I was. I mean with this rabbit, and if there are more…”
“I’ll have my kids there this afternoon as well. Why don’t you make sure Mike is with you, and bring his rabbit with you? I’ll bring mine, and we can compare.”
There was a swooshing sound from Destin’s end of the line.
“Mr. Kelly?”
“No problem, he just did it again. It seems to be a bit of a cycle, right?”
“Right.”
“Put my son on will you?”
“Sure.”
Mr. Phillips handed his phone over to Mike.
“Dad?”
“Mike, you keep that rabbit, right?”
“Yeah!”
“I mean it, keep it safe. Don’t let anyone take it from you. I’ll be at the science thing later this afternoon when you are on your field trip with Mr. Phillips. I want to compare our rabbits and see if we can tell anything then, okay?”
“You got it.”
“Keep him in your backpack. If anyone gives you grief about it, tell them that it’s part of an experiment and that Mr. Phillips has said to keep it upper wraps.”
“Okay.”
“I think if you keep him in the dark, he won’t change. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“You hear that Phillips?”
Mr. Phillips took the phone back from Mike. “Yeah, I got it. I’ll give him a pass.”
“That’s a start.”
“I want in on this,” said Phillips.
“Don’t you worry, I think there’s going to be enough of this to go around for all.”
“Sounds good.”
They hung up.
“All right Mike, let’s set you up with a pass.”
They went into the teacher’s lounge, and he wrote Mike out a pass. It instructed any teacher who wanted to see what was in his backpack, that Mr. Phillips was conducting an experiment with the boy, and that they’d better inform him before looking into it, also that he was to carry it with him wherever he went today, and that it’s to go with him to the science exhibit later that afternoon.
“Make sure you keep it in your backpack. If what your father thinks is true, that’ll keep him from breathing fire on us all over the place before we can get him out of the school.”
“I will.”
Mike took the note and was about to leave.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Let me give you another one for your first period. You’ll be late.”
“Thanks. What about your first period?”
“Those kids? They are too busy texting in there to notice that I haven’t made it in yet.”
Mike took the other note and took off for English.
Destin laughed with delight at his second-period class. The frogs lay on the table, forgotten while they played with the fire-breathing rabbit.
“Look here,” said Destin. He raised up a ball of paper, that he’d taken from one of the student’s notebooks and he held it up for the rabbit.
The rabbit trained its eye on the paper. Destin tossed it into the air, and at that moment, the rabbit spat a stream of fire that torched it. It disintegrated into a mass of light and flame that did not touch the ground.
For the first time in his career, Destin had the full attention of every student in his class.
“Mr. Kelly what is that!” they said.
“What indeed,” he said, as he came around the table to the other side.
“Quite an interesting specimen,” said Destin. “It’s a rabbit, but not. It looks like one, but it’s not. It has the ability to turn red.”
The rabbit flared its fur red, then back to white.
“It has the ability to stay rock-solid in the face of danger, or in front of us for that matter.”
The rabbit just stood there. It kept its eyes on Destin, but otherwise, it stood still.
“We ought to be chasing this rabbit all around the room, instead, it’s calm.”
Someone raised a hand.
“Yes?”
“Then why aren’t we?”
“I don’t know, but I imagine it has to be because it’s a lot surer of itself than we are right now.”
“Maybe it’s scared?”
“Does it look scared?”
Destin picked up the rabbit by the scruff of its neck and held it aloft. The rabbit just looked at him. No turning red, no breathing fire, just a white rabbit, maybe looking a little annoyed. He put the rabbit down, and it stood at the edge of his desk but did not jump off.
“It’s watching us,” said one of the kids.
“Interesting note, you just heard my call, so you know that my son Mike, a middle schooler also found one this morning. I suspect there may be others.”
“What do they want?” said one of the kids.
“Also a good question. I don’t know that either, but I can only suspect.”
“Suspect what?”
“I want to see what happens when I get two or more of them together. Anybody else?”
Everyone’s hand went up.
“Are you all going with me to the science exhibit this afternoon?”
All their hands went up again.
“Good. In that case, all I ask from you is that you don’t tell anyone else about him. No one says I have this rabbit in here, right?” They all agreed.
“No texts, no images posted to your favorite online sites, a blackout right? I’m not supposed to have him, so the fewer people know, the easier it will be for me to get him out of the school, right?”
Everyone just stared.
“Right?”
“Right!” they all said together.
“All right then.”
The bell rang, and everyone filed out. Destin prepared for his next group of kids. Fresh frogs went out to each station. If he had to, he would burn the frog and note that everyone had finished the assignment just fine. He needed to get out of the school with the rabbit intact.
He tucked the rabbit back into the box. It was still tranquil and compliant with everything he wanted to do. He waited for the next class to file in, and let them discover the rabbit again.
Similar results. Before the hour was over, he had another class of students swearing to help him get the rabbit out of the school to safety.
There were the regular guards near the front door, and the off-duty cop wandering the halls. That was all normal, but when you are heading out on a field trip people get a little antsy. The lives of the students are involved, but this was different. This time, Destin had contraband. How do you explain something like this? He tucked the fire-breathing rabbit under his arm, in its cardboard box. He chuckled at that. Cardboard. He did a facepalm and just shook it off with a smile, and had his kids line up. Not everyone was going to the science exhibit, but most of them were. He had two more classes from that afternoon that would be going as well, and they hadn’t seen the rabbit yet. Once he had all the students from his earlier classes lined up, and the rest of them sent off to other classes for the afternoon, he shut the door. It was quite a full house as he pulled out the rabbit to show the rest of them.
Everyone was now in on the big secret.
The rabbit, under careful petting of its soft white fur, turned deep red, with darker red patches again, the eyes lit up, and then fire! It erupted from the rabbit’s mouth like a sneeze went wrong. All they could do was applaud.
Back in the box, the rabbit calmed back down and turned white again, and they were out the door. The kids lined up, but there was no chance they were going to get left behind, every eye was on Mr. Kelly and the box. They turned the corners and came to the front of the school, and it was more like a dance.
Destin walked up to the officer, as they were about to check out of the school, and turned before getting to him. He swapped the box for a stack of papers from one of his students. It was a sign-up sheet for the field trip. He went over it with the officer, noting names, yes I have him, no, he’s sick today, yes I have him while another boy carried the box and the rabbit through the doors and onto the bus. The rabbit made its way back and forth through the kids until everyone was on board. Destin was the last to climb on.
“Where is he, kids?”
They pointed to a chair three rows back, where the rest of the boxed up experiments were piled up.
“There you are.”
Destin opened the box, and the rabbit’s ears popped out.
“Hello there.”
It jumped from the box, flat-footed, and landed on Destin’s shoulder.
“What’s that?” said the bus driver, who was getting the bus in gear.
“Just our mascot,” said Destin. “He’s part of one of the experiments.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to have animals.”
“I’m a rule breaker. That’s true. Thought the kids would like to see something that was alive rather than another preserved frog.”
“Long as you know what you’re doing.”
The rabbit was alert, focused and laser-like as the bus pulled out, looking in all directions.
About halfway there, he turned bright red and became excited, jumping from kid to kid. Across the street, almost riding next to them, was a pack of four or five other rabbits, who sensing the other’s presence in the box, also turned red and started to leap in ten-foot bounds, keeping right up with them.
