The Constant Rabbit

It was time for me to leave. I mumbled that I was wanted elsewhere, and turned towards the door to find Mr Ffoxe waiting at the door. He had moved so blindingly fast it seemed as though there were two of him in the room, and I had to look back to check.

‘Mr Knox, sir, not so fast, sir. Did I say that you could go, sir?’

‘No, sir, no, sir, Mr Ffoxe, sir,’ I mumbled. ‘What else should I do, sir?’

He placed his muzzle close to me and inhaled deeply.

‘Oh-ho,’ he said, suddenly distracted, ‘you’ve been near a female rabbit recently.’

I thought of Connie in Waitrose.

‘I stopped at Ascari’s on the way here,’ I said, ‘there was a rabbarista behind the counter.’

I stammered slightly as I said it, and Mr Ffoxe knew instantly I was lying.

‘Well, how about that?’ he said with a laugh. ‘Little Knoxie’s been beguiled. What was it? The eyes? The bobbling cottontail? The inexplicable and utterly inappropriate sexualisation of an otherwise unremarkable lower mammal? Who was she? Your new neighbour?’

‘No—’ I stopped as I realised what he’d said, then: ‘How did you know I had rabbits as neighbours?’

He smiled.

‘Don’t let yourself be tempted by the bun’s mild temperament and apparent peaceful nature,’ he said without answering my question. ‘That “cute and cuddly victim of human’s domination” stuff they do? It’s bullshit. It’s not sunny meadows, warm burrows and dandelion leaves they’re after, it’s majoritisation, assimilation and domination. And they could win out, if left unchecked. Promiscuity is not just their raison d’être, it’s their secret weapon. A LitterBomb is a very real and present danger, and once the supply chain of stockpiled food is successfully coordinated by the Underground, the word will go out. Before you can say Lapin à la cocotte you’ll be outnumbered, outvoted in your own nation, working for a rabbit, taking orders from a rabbit, worshipping at their altar and living the lapine way – it’ll be lettuce for supper, dinner and tea. Do you want that?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Then we’re totally together on this, because that’s what Flopsy 7770 and the rest of those treasonous bunscum are up to.’

‘Really?’

‘You’d better believe it. So look, here’s what you’re going to do about your neighbours: be wary, but stay friendly. Do what you have to do to gain their confidence. We’ll tell you what we want you to do in due course.’

‘So I want to keep them in the village?’ I said, thinking about the Malletts’ moving-out fund.

‘If you can. Infiltrate, make friends and report back. The Taskforce will be grateful. I will be grateful.’

Mr Ffoxe patted me on the shoulder in a patronising manner, and then, without me noticing, snaked a paw into my jacket and deposited a small yet very fresh fox turd in my inside breast pocket.³² He then smiled.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, indicating the bloodstained hessian sack in the middle of his office carpet, ‘want a couple of haunches for the pot? Tasty and nutritious.’

I finally found a voice.

‘This isn’t compliance,’ I said, ‘it’s …’

My voice trailed off.

‘You can speak your mind here, Knox. I give you permission. This one’s on me. A free pass.’

‘It’s … murder,’ I said, indicating the hessian sack.

He took a draw on his cigar and chuckled.

‘Can you even begin to understand the level of that statement’s hypocrisy coming from you? Cruel as we are, foxes are amateurs next to humans. I may be a little harsh on your furry woodland friends, but exitus acta probat,³³ Knox. But here’s the thing: it’s not me and my foxy chums currently and without even a flicker of collective guilt precipitating an unprecedented extinction event on the entire sodding planet.’

He glared at me for a moment and I shifted my weight nervously.

‘And don’t say you’re not personally responsible,’ continued Mr Ffoxe, ‘because you are. Your tacit support of the status quo is proof of your complicity, your shrugging indifference a favourable vote in support of keeping things exactly as they are. I’m not the murderer, Knox, you are – you and all your pathetic little naked primate cousins with their silly hairstyles and gangly limbs and overdeveloped sense of entitlement and self-serving delusion.’

I felt myself grow hot under his glare.

‘And now,’ he said in a low voice, ‘you can piss off back to the upstanding and necessary work you are paid handsomely to do. Four names, on my desk, by sundown.’

I needed no second bidding and hastily left the room.

‘Everything OK?’ asked Toby when I got back to my desk.

‘No,’ I said, ‘not really. In fact, not at all.’

Dinner & Dandelion Brandy

The most decorated service rabbit in history was RAF Navigation Officer Danielle ‘Thumper’ Rabbit, who ejected from a Tornado over Iraq when it was hit by a surface-to-air missile. She wrote about her time as a POW in Bouncing Out of Tikrit, and it was quite a good read, although critics did find fault with the overlong detail of Iraqi salad in the latter part of the book.