This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Attack of the Atomic Bunny Rabbits!

Mornings at the Kelly house were hectic, to say the least. To say that they were a whirlwind of disaster would be equally descriptive of them, but hectic is still a nice word that describes it all.

Lunches were packed. Maria, who had been up for an hour already, had seen to that. She always liked to get everything ready and then sit with a cup of coffee while all the chaos orbited around her. Bathrooms and pipes made noise as people started taking showers and getting dressed, and then bounding downstairs.

Dad was the first.

“Morning Destin.”

“Morning Maria.” He gave her a kiss and fixed his tie in the mirror of the powder room that was just off the kitchen. He had buttoned his shirt in the dark, and was one button off, giving him a zombie quality that he liked. He fixed his buttons, now aware of why his tie felt so strange.

“Are you eating this morning?” she asked.

“No, I’ve got to… wait. Yes,” he said.

“Good, then it’s a good thing yours is ready.” She dropped french toast onto the table, that Destin could see no evidence she had cooked. He sat down to eat it, throwing his tie over his left shoulder.

“Do your students ever see you do that?”

“What, the tie?”

She nodded.

“I suppose so. I’ve never thought of it.”

There was a bang upstairs.

“That’ll be Mike,” said Destin.

To his students, he was Mr. Kelly, but Destin was what he’d rather hear. He looked and noticed a big cardboard box he was planning to take today. A little something extra for the kids. He had no idea of course what he’d be smuggling inside that box today.

Soon kids were coming down the stairs. Mike, who was still in the 7th grade was first. He flew down, and passed his mom and dad, on his way through and out the door. He looked like he was dressing as he went. Shirt half on and shoes untied. He hopped along on one foot tying one shoe, and then on the other to do the same. He grabbed his backpack.

“Woah Tiger,” said his dad.

Mike blinked, almost unaware that his parents were sitting over there. He noticed the french toast and sat down to inhale it in one go. While he was working on that, his sister Annie ran down the stairs. She was still in preschool but was much neater and calmer than her brother. Her hair was braided in long auburn pigtails.

She sat down to breakfast.

“Dad, have you thought about it yet?” asked Mike.

“What?” Destin wiped something from his mouth.

“Getting a dog.”

“Oh, that. I don’t know. A pet is a huge responsibility. Do you think you can handle it?”

“I want a cat,” said Annie. “I thought we were getting a cat.”

“I think we were discussing what kind of pet to get at all,” said Maria. She sipped at her coffee.

“That’s right,” said Mike. “But I want a dog. Dogs are more fun than cats.”

“How do you know?” said Annie. “Cats are nice. They cuddle in your lap.”

“Some dogs will do that,” said Destin.

“It’s not the same,” said Annie.

“I can see we still have some thinking to do,” said Destin. “I’m taking everyone in today. I’ve got some extra things to take into school. I’m starting a new experiment with some of my High School kids.”

“Are you doing frogs today?” asked Maria.

“No, it’s something a little different. More of a demonstration.”

“I’m taking the bus,” said Mike.

“Are you sure? I can still take you,” said Destin.

“No, I’m all right.” Mike stood up.

“You haven’t finished your breakfast,” said Maria.

“I’ve had enough.”

Mike hugged his mom, and then took off out the door. The stop was up at the end of the street.

Destin packed his box up and took Annie by the hand. They stepped down into the garage and were soon backed out of the driveway and on their way.

Maria did the cleaning up. She was with Annie if anyone wanted to know, a cat would be nice. Then she thought about it for a little while longer and realized that what she’d always wanted was a snake. It was the kind of pet that no one in the house was just going to say yes to. She had always dreamed of doing something just a little dangerous. Something that she could show the other moms and scare them with just a little bit.

“Go, team,” she said.

Out the back window, she could see them romping through the yard, three white rabbits, like streaks of light in the early morning light. They bounded through like they were on fire.

“I’ve never seen rabbits like that in the yard. Shouldn’t they be brown? Maybe they are from Eagle Lake Labs, up the hill?” She turned and lost herself in the cleanup they had all left behind for her.

Mike hopped on his bus. He marched to the back of it, found an empty seat, and slung himself into it. He put his backpack up on the seat next to him and dared anyone with his eyes to try to sit next to him. After the bus was out of the neighborhood he opened his pack to look at a dog breeds magazine.  He was looking at the dogs playing frisbee, and some that were training to do long jumps in a pool. He kept going back to those pages. Then he saw them.

Rabbits by the road were running and catching up with the bus. There were three of them.

“Look,” said Mike.

Some of his friends gathered around. They still maintained their distance from him a little bit, but some of the other kids were pointing as well. There were three white rabbits hopping along the side of the bus, and keeping pace with it. They didn’t look real like they were out of some kind of storybook or something, almost a blur.

“Look at them go,” said one kid.

“I’d like a rabbit-like that,” said another.

Mike thought about his dogs and wondered if a rabbit that could keep up with a school bus could catch a frisbee. He craned around in his green seat as they turned a corner and lost the rabbits to a different turn at an intersection.

“They are going through the woods,” said Mike.

“What did you think they’d do?” said Betty Johnson, from the front of the bus.

“I don’t know. It looked like they were following us,” said Mike. “I wonder where they are going.”

Betty rolled her eyes. “The school is on the other side of those woods, Mike. If they are chasing us to school, they just took a shortcut.”

They watched the rabbits disappear into the woods, their big feet bounding over the rocks and the tree stumps that were out there. In a moment, they were gone.

Destin and Annie saw them too. It was coming around the corner near her school. There were half a dozen white rabbits running around a playground. They were scaling the big jungle gym and leaping over it and into the sandbox before skittering through a series of plastic tubes, and under the large metal duck on a spring, then making it through the wooden fence on the other side, and escaping there through a crack.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

“Yeah Annie, look at that.”

He stopped the car and watched as the rabbits ran through the playground.

“I wonder where they are going?”

“Daddy, can I have a rabbit?”

“And I wonder where they came from. What?”

“A rabbit, can I have one of those?”

He smiled.

“We can add that to the list and see what everyone thinks tonight. Okay?”

“Okay.” She pulled her backpack on. Her father kissed her and sent her to the school.

Then he got back in his own car and headed for the high school. It was frogs today, but he hadn’t wanted to tell anyone that, and he’d rather not do it either, but it was what it was.

He pulled around the corner, and down the street to his own school. He parked in his designated spot, the one right under the branch that the robins all liked to congregate on, and pulled his old musty box out of the back seat. Expecting to find his notes and diagrams about the frog’s internal anatomy, he saw instead a small nest, made of the remains of all his notes and materials. It looked more like a jumble of paper, but some kind of little critter must have done it.

What was in there?

He closed the lid of the box, tucked it under his arm, and went into the school through a side door. Inside, he could smell the ammonia of the recently mopped floors. Students were headed everywhere. Some were hanging out on the floors by their lockers, not yet able to get into their classrooms, others wandered the halls heading up and down from the cafeteria to the gym over and over again, but most of them just crowded around and talked.

Somewhere in the distance, a warning bell rang. There were another ten minutes before classes were to begin. Destin could feel something moving in the box, scratching to get out. Was the box feeling warmer? He shifted it to his other arm. Maybe it was like a small raccoon or a squirrel, but jittery. It bounced in there. Was that a bounce?

He slipped into his classroom and put the box on his big science table. It was black and burn proof.

The box moved.

He pushed it back into the middle of the table. Students were knocking at the door. He didn’t want to show them this. What if he’d just managed to bring a stray or something into the school building?

Whatever it was scratched, and a little white paw appeared through flaps where they all came together at the top of the box.

There was chewing.

He held the box feeling for movement.

After a moment, all signs of it stopped.

He reached down with a finger, and pulled gently at the flaps, and opened the box up.