The Constant Rabbit Read online

  I took the insurance payout from my burned house, sold the plot and moved to Rhayader, where I purchased a large house with grounds that overlooked the old MegaWarren site. I took to chronicling the fifty-five years of the Event in some considerable detail, and seemed the person best positioned to do so. Of all the humans who were living in the five colonies at the time of the Reversion, seventy-six decided not to go. I interviewed sixty-eight of them for my book. The number of humans who had decided to go with the rabbits was around four thousand, but estimates vary. They were officially declared ‘missing, whereabouts unknown’.

  Patrick Finkle and Pippa were amongst them.

  When the MegaWarren site was sold I bought the entranceway, admin buildings and forty acres of warren, from which was developed the Event Museum, now in its ninth year, and currently Mid-Wales’ fifth-most popular tourist attraction. The reopened branch line, now a steam heritage railway, is the first.

  It took Connie two years to find me and take up residence in my orchard. I could easily identify her by the mismatched eyes – one bluey-violet, the colour of harebells, one as brown as a fresh hazelnut – but if she retained any sense of what she had once been, I didn’t see it. She acted just like a wild field rabbit. Harvey joined her a week later. He was easily identified by the lack of any ears, and with him, always with him, always together, was a smaller rabbit, a female, who would have been indistinguishable from any other rabbit but for a single ear stud on her right ear, a present from me on her eighteenth birthday, and never removed. She moved uncertainly, but well enough to forage amongst the food I left out for them, the muscular strength of her forelegs making up for any shortfall. I missed her terribly, but it was her choice to stay with Harvey and fully embrace the Rabbit Way, and I respected that.

  The rabbits were curious, but never really tame, and the colony remains there to this day. The one who I once knew as Constance lived the longest. She used to come on to the patio and stare at me quizzically as I made breakfast, but would run away if I opened the door.

  It was to be expected. She was, after all, only a rabbit.

  Acknowledgements:

  I am indebted first of all to my agent Will Francis and my Editor Carolyn Mays, who interpreted a very troublesome first draft of The Constant Rabbit in a positive manner and were sufficiently bold to see that the core idea was sound, and that something good may come out of it.

  The many references to The Court Jester are in deep homage to an iconic movie, but it should be noted that the duelling pistol ditties are an adaptation of Martha Raye and Bob Hope in ‘Never Say Die’, itself a precursor to the ‘Pellet with the poison’ routine. I also borrowed a line from a Spike Milligan short story and a Mel Brooks film – two titans of comedy whom I hope will forgive me.

  Rabbit information was supplied via Wikipedia and Lockley’s excellent Private Life of the Rabbit. My apologies to anyone in Herefordshire who have battled tirelessly to attack inequality in this world and feel they might have been in some small measure maligned. I had to set the book somewhere.

  My thanks to the team at Hodder for their endless support, especially Lily Cooper, and my thanks go also to the eagle-eyed Sharona Selby and Olivia Davies.

  The frontispiece was drawn by Bill Mudron of Portland, Oregon. Other examples of his work can be found at https://www.billmudron.com/ and he will gladly discuss commissions.

  And lastly, Ozzy, whose mention will be no surprise to my readers. Although slowing up in the stick-fetching department, he still shows enthusiasm for walkies to a dog half his age, and whose companionship I value beyond that of many humans.

  Jasper Fforde,

  February 2020

  Footnotes

  Speed Librarying

  1. The script looks like ‘scuffed mud’, the sort of marks you get in the back porch after inclement weather. The Rabbity alphabet, incidentally, has only six letters: N, I, R, H, U and F.

  2. As a cost-cutting measure the old card system was reintroduced to Herefordshire libraries. Each user has a cardboard wallet held by the library, into which the card contained in a pocket on each book is placed. The book then has a stamp for its due return date, as has the card held by the library. The user wallets are stored in a large indexing system. It’s a lot more simple than it sounds.

  Toast & TwoLegsGood

  3. The blueprint for the way in which the rabbit had become anthropomorphised was generally agreed to be along Beatrix Potter lines. Why this was so it was impossible to say, but it was a look and a feel and a tone which the rabbit fully embraced.

  4. Ross-on-Wye, the third-largest town in Herefordshire.

  5. Those with a fear/mistrust/dislike of rabbits, but I figure you guessed that.

  6. They often cited Macquarie Island, which is worth a read on Wikipedia, if you’ve got a few minutes.

  7. Nothing was ever manufactured with components smaller than a marble. Dexterity could be challenging without opposable thumbs.

  Spotters & Spotting

  8. The algorithm was occasionally tweaked depending on whether arrest and conviction targets were being met.

  9. The closest thing to a war amongst rabbits. The high point of the hostilities was Anton Von Hercule’s fourteen-hour ‘less than polite’ rant in July 1987, which was met by a barrage of sarcasm that is still talked about today, usually in hushed tones.

  10. Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

  11. Rabbits were quite big into Gilbert and Sullivan operas, despite not having good singing voices. Few, if any, would even attempt The Mikado.

  12. The most popular (and politically active) daily newspaper for rabbits. There is no online edition, and copies are banned off-colony owing to the ink ‘falling short of industry standards’.

  Fudds and Flopsies

  13. ‘John Flopsy’ was the generic term to describe an unidentified rabbit, similar to ‘John Doe’ for humans. The female equivalent, logically enough, was ‘Jane Flopsy’. The long-term usage of the word made ‘Flopsy’ slang for a rabbit of a criminal tendency, or often, any rabbit at all.

  14. Her spiritual name was actually ‘B’uuntii’ but she was known by everyone, rabbits included, as ‘Bunty’. The closest translation of her name would be ‘I can see clearly now’, which is also the first line of the rabbit’s anthem and a Johnny Nash single, although it is not thought the two are related.

  15. Rabbit slang for a ‘smoking gun’, ‘dead cert’ or ‘done deal’.

  Ross & Rabbits

  16. Given that rabbits can reproduce at age three with a potential litter of eight as many as six times a year, even a modest wastage figure of fifteen per cent would suggest their numbers could surpass those of humans in the UK in as little as four years.

  17. People from Yorkshire do this.

  18. It’s very good, and now operates a book lease-back agreement with rabbits, to whom owning something that you might use once every six or seven years seemed a little pointless.

  19. A term used between pro-rabbit humans to describe rabbits. Although a positive term, it could also mean the opposite. Context is everything.

  Griswold & Gossip

  20. Most notably, he played Ugarte in Casablanca. One of the now-forgotten stars of the silver screen.

  21. Rabbits are good at languages as they are at much else – the average IQ of a rabbit is about twenty per cent higher than that of humans, an indication that the Event may have been partly satirical in nature.

  Next Sunday, Next Door

  22. I didn’t know that then; I found out later. The actual car is now part of the Event Museum near Rhayader. Coincidentally, it was the civilian model of the car that Jake and Elwood Blues drove.

  23. See Chapter 6 of Dr Sam Ingram’s landmark work Below-waist Costume, Modesty, and the Bipedal Post-Event Rabbit.

  24. Mainly about carrots and fruitcake and his favourite Beatle, but Franklin was only young at the time. Interviewed later, he told reporters that he should have said something more measured and
erudite.

  25. Rough translation of first line: Your warren is my burrow / your burrow is my warren / veg we share / together for warmth / carrot Ho! / carrot Hah!

  26. One should never underestimate the recuperating properties of a favourite variety of carrot.

  Searching in vain & Shopping in town

  27. Not counting the ears. Rabbits are measured to the space on the top of the head between their ears. As a curious aside, ears are exactly one third body height, irrespective of age. No one knows why.

  28. Not that any actually wanted to be bunny girls. It was more the principle of the matter.

  29. Unlike humans, rabbits can become pregnant almost any time they choose. High reproduction rates can often be an engine of swift evolutionary change, and may account for forty per cent of all mammals today belonging to the rodent/rabbit family.

  Senior Group Leader

  30. ‘Overcome evil with good’.

  31. Until you actually met one in the flesh, you might never know they were a weasel – which surprises many a prospective date as they spend a disproportionate amount of time using dating apps. Inexplicably, with a young Anthony Eden or Unity Mitford as their profile picture.

  32. I only found this out the next time I put my hand in my pocket. It is a well-known fox joke, although only foxes find it funny.

  33. The outcome justifies the deed.

  Dinner & Dandelion Brandy

  34. Niffniff was the Rabbity word for human; the term ‘Fudd’ is colloquial.

  35. During a duel, one always has appointed trusted ‘seconds’ to assist and ensure fair play.

  36. It’s the family of viruses behind Rabbitpox, just one of several viruses potentially fatal to rabbits.

  37. She used up all seven tiles and got a bonus fifty, in case you’re wondering how she did this. ‘Rid’ was already placed, although I have a sneaking suspicion that since Doc placed it, he might have been assisting his wife.

  38. Rabbits are keen on any film involving tunnelling, and still embrace the retro tech of VCRs.

  Labstock Bunshot

  39. If you’ve ever owned a spaniel, you’ll know exactly what this looks like.

  Rabbit Riot

  40. Improbably enough, this was her name. No one knew whether it was the result of unimaginative parents, a foolish error during her birth registration or taking a partner’s coincidental second name on marriage.

  Shopping & Sally Lomax

  41. Oddly, they could deal with heights – but just didn’t like to. Rabbits serving in the RAF saw it as their duty and soon got used to it.

  42. ‘Linear A’ is a Minoan writing system used between 1800 and 1400 BC, and was generally thought to be undecipherable.

  Tittle-Tattle and Toast

  43. For a group so reviled, the rabbit’s cheap and skilled labour force was essential as an economic safety net after Brexit. ‘Without the rabbit’s good nature and industry,’ said Finkle, ‘the UK would be on its knees.’

  44. Technically I was incorrect: since mammalia is the last taxonomic classification that rabbits and humans share and we differ firstly by order, not species, any contact should really be termed ‘extra-order’, and as the Venerable Bunty was heard to say, ‘We should celebrate the extraordinary’.

  All Saints, All Spite

  45. It’s pronounced ‘Fanshaw’.

  46. ‘No one is above fault’.

  47. Foxes called it ‘playing’, claiming euphemistic linguistic precedence, as when a cat ‘plays with a mouse’.

  The Thespian Talk-Through

  48. Not the 3000, obviously – quite out of my price bracket. No, this was a Sprite Mk1, known affectionately as the ‘Frogeye’.

  49. The name for a hill in this corner of Herefordshire.

  50. A popular vegan chain of restaurants run entirely by rabbits, something that TwoLegsGood and UKARP describe as ‘the disgusting spectre of food fascism laid bare for all to see’.

  Morning Mood

  51. Why don’t Petstock and Labstock mate? Because the offspring might be too lazy to steal. When are rabbits really good mothers? When they eat their own young. What looks best on a rabbit? A pie crust. What’s the difference between a rabbit and a bucket of turds? The bucket.

  MegaWarren

  52. Up until that moment, I thought this was a leporiphobic slur. Apparently it wasn’t.

  53. Literally ‘among the rabbits’, but I’m not sure where the quote came from, nor who he was paraphrasing.

  Car & Custody

  54. I am to this day confused as to why Harvey didn’t speak to Lugless in Rabbity. Either he was speaking for my benefit or Lugless wasn’t considered rabbit enough to be treated as such. There may have been another reason. I will never know.

  The Art of the Deal

  55. It felt like half an hour but was probably less than a minute.

  Bouncing with Constance

  56. Rabbits routinely avoided single-use plastics. Knowing that rabbits adored their tea cakes, Tunnock’s – in an inspired move – shipped their goods to rabbits in wooden crates of two hundred.

  Dinner & Deity

  57. It is still there, by the side of the road as you drive into town having left the Hume Highway from the Canberra direction.

  Cordiality Collapse

  58. It’s a popular brand of real ale. Still available, I believe.

  Lapin Flambé & HMP Leominster

  59. If only life were like this.

  60. The sentence for burrowing-related crime was never more than a year, but Smethwick’s manifesto promise of ‘six holes and you’re out’ rule ensured repeat offenders were banged up for life.

  The Trials of Lance deBlackberry

  61. A non-legally qualified person who may assist a litigant in court. See McKenzie v. McKenzie, 1970.

  Endgame

  62. In case you’re not conversant with teatime etiquette, a ‘doily’ is the round ornamental mat cakes and sandwiches are served upon.

  63. Evidence suggests he was referring to the International Criminal Court and not the International Cricket Council.