The Tale of Mark the Bunny | Page 4

will, too."
Jonathan stopped and turned to face the other bunnies. He sat up on his hind legs and said, "Look! Look what we did!"
"It's not so bad," Lenny said.
"Not so bad?" Jonathan said. "Not so bad? It's wonderful. We're only bunnies, and we did this. We made this great big hole, which isn't just a hole, it's the start of a new river. Instead of just sitting around and being scared and hungry, we did something about it! I'm going to tell everybody!"
*
The next morning there were forty eager bunnies at the trench, and still more showed up as the day went on. Sophie and Lenny had to stop frequently to answer questions and explain Sophie's idea over and over. But with forty bunnies digging and laughing and having fun, the work went much faster than it had the day before.
In the afternoon Jane Bunny came to the edge of the ditch and asked if she could talk to Sophie. Sophie hopped out and said, "What can I do for you?"
"No, it's me," Jane said. "I want to do something for you. But I can't dig." She held up her left front leg, which had never worked right, even when she was a baby.
"There is something you can do," Sophie said. "If you really want to."
Sophie explained her ideas to Jane, who actually had some ideas of her own. For instance, she thought of making trees that had grown up in the old riverbed into islands, so the bunnies wouldn't have to dig them up or move to higher ground to get around them. Jane was able to hop up and down along the trench and answer questions and carry messages back and forth between the other workers.
On the third day, even more bunnies showed up. One of them was Albertus, though he hadn't come to work. He sat on a hill and watched for long enough that everyone could see him, and see that he was unhappy, before he hopped slowly away.
*
That evening the Reverend Billy Bunny called a meeting in the village square. "What you're doing," he said, "just isn't natural."
"Bunnies dig," Maria said. "What's unnatural about that?"
"You're changing things," the Reverend Billy said.
"We're just putting the river back where it used to be," Jane said. "We're not hurting any other animals."
"Only the Easter Bunny," the Reverend Billy said, "is supposed to change the shape of the land."
This was a very difficult idea and everyone got very quiet to think about it. It was a hot night, with stars almost as bright as the Moon, and crickets sang all around them.
Suddenly a voice spoke up from the back of the crowd.
"Eggs," little Ralph said.
The Reverend Billy seemed startled. "What did you say?"
"I said, 'eggs,'" Ralph told him. "I thought the Easter Bunny was just in charge of Easter eggs."
"Well, er, um..."
"Yeah," said Lenny, who seemed to be much less afraid than he used to be. "Who said the Easter bunny was in charge of rivers?"
"Yeah," said Annie. "You're always telling us the Easter Bunny helps those who help themselves. If this isn't helping ourselves, what is?"
"But, er, well..."
The bunnies, one and two at a time, began to slowly hop away from the square. "We're tired," Jonathan said as he left. "Let's do this some other time."
"If you want to help us dig," Maria said, "we'd be happy to see you tomorrow."
*
The Reverend Billy Bunny didn't show up to dig the next day, or any of the days after. However, he didn't call any more meetings either, which many of the bunnies thought almost made up for his not working.
Soon the hole went right up to the edge of the village. Some of the bunnies wanted to quit right then and there and let the water into the ditch, but Jane spoke up. "You've seen how water gets bad if it doesn't keep moving. We need to finish the job, just like Sophie said."
Other bunnies had ideas, too. Little Ralph surprised even himself when he figured out that they needed to tunnel under a big tree that had fallen across the old riverbed instead of going around it or trying to move it. "That way," he said, "when the water goes under it, we can use it to get to the other side."
Three weeks from the day they first broke ground, the ditch was almost finished. Sophie and Lenny together broke through at the downstream end, where the little river would eventually join back with the big one. All that was left was to break through the wall at the upstream end and let the water in.
*
The entire village gathered at the river, ready to celebrate, including old Albertus, who had found another hill where he could look down on them. Even the Reverend Billy was there, trying to