Bunnicula Strikes Again! (5 page)

As quietly as I could, I removed myself from
Toby's bed, stretched out my aching muscles, and lumbered down the stairs.

On first encountering the familiar scene in the living room, I felt immensely reassured. Bunnicula was in his cage, Chester was curled up in his armchair, Howie lay sprawled under the coffee table. Each was in his proper place. Serenity was spread over the room like cream cheese on a bagel.

Now for those of you who haven't read my first book,
Bunnicula,
the idea of my singing a lullaby to my little furry friend in the language of his native land (a remote area of the Carpathian Mountains region) may strike you as peculiar. For those of you who have read the book, the idea probably strikes you as just as peculiar, but at least you've been warned. You see, soon after Bunnicula's arrival in our home, I discovered that this particular lullaby soothes him, and so I have sung it to him regularly ever since. Roughly translated, it goes something like this:

Admittedly, it sounds better in the original. I only regret that I cannot record the melody here, for there is a wistful melancholia about it that would touch you, I'm certain, as it touches me when I croon it in my throaty baritone. And I know it touches Bunnicula as it carries him off to dream-land. On this occasion, however, I noted a new response on Bunnicula's part—one that struck me as curious and, under the circumstances, somewhat alarming.

“Do rabbits cry?” I asked Chester after Bunnicula had fallen asleep.

Chester had roused himself from his night's slumber and was in the middle of doing that stretch cats do where they extend their front paws out on the floor in front of them as if they're praying and
raise their rear ends up high like they're waiting for the whole world to notice and say, “Hey, that's some nice tush you got there.”

I explained that as I was singing the lullaby to Bunnicula—the same one, I pointed out, that I'd sung him many times before—tears were rolling down his fuzzy little cheeks.

“Rabbits don't have a sentimental bone in their bodies,” Chester said, dismissing the whole thing categorically. “Especially vampire rabbits.”

And with that he marched into the kitchen for breakfast. End of discussion.

I glanced out the window. The sky was gray, and a misty rain was beginning to fall. The perfect sort of day for serious napping, I thought, and that was exactly how I intended to spend it.

And that was exactly how I
was
spending it until some time later when I heard Chester's voice buzzing in my ear like a gnat.

“Harold, Harold,” he buzzed. “I know you're in there, Harold!”

What next? I thought. We've got you surrounded?

“Okay, fine,” he went on, “it takes you time to open your eyes, I know that. I wouldn't want you to strain yourself, have a heart attack or something, from the effort of pushing up your eyelids too quickly, so just listen.”

Do I bite him now or later?

“I've got it all figured out, Harold.”

“He does, Uncle Harold, he really does.”

Oh, joy. The junior detective is also on the scene.

“Howie, let me handle this, will you?” Chester said.

“Sure, Pop.”

I began to snore.

“Stop trying to pretend you're asleep, Harold,” Chester pressed on relentlessly. “Okay, here's my theory. First, when was it that Bunnicula started acting frisky and playful and when, not so coincidentally,
did he start his most recent assault on vegetables? Right after Mr. and Mrs. Monroe received calls from their mothers, that's when. Now, when did everything change? Two weeks later, on Mother's Day, Harold! When he heard the other mothers were coming, he must have gotten it into his little hare brain that
his
long-lost mother might be coming on Mother's Day, too, and when she didn't .. . it was down-in-the-dumps for our little furry friend.”

“I'll bet he thinks she doesn't love him anymore,” Howie chimed in. “And you know what they say—you're no bunny till some bunny loves you.”

Fascinating. I could actually
hear
Chester gritting his teeth. “What more evidence do you need, Harold? Think about it. He
cried
when you sang him that silly lullaby. He cried, Harold. He misses his mother! But that's not the half of it. He has plans, Harold, I'm sure of it. Some of those tears were because his plans were not fulfilled. Come on, let's go. I know that you know that I know what must be done!”

Slowly, I raised my eyelids. “Do you talk that
way just to drive me crazy?” I asked. “Or do you actually
think
in sentences like that?”

“If there's any chance Bunnicula's mother has returned, we've got to find her before he does,” Chester said.

“Before he does,” Howie echoed.

“It can't all be coincidence, Harold. Just think about it. Mother's Day . . . and what movie was playing at the theater?
Dracula,
Harold,
Dracula!”

I looked at the two of them. I looked out the window. I thought back to Chester's description of Bunnicula's half-finished attacks on the vegetables, as if it were a sport. Maybe he was celebrating in his own way the possibility of being reunited with his mother. There was some logic to that.

“But it's raining,” I pointed out.

“So?” said Chester. “You're waterproof. If Bunnicula's mother is out there, who knows how many more vampire rabbits are on the loose?”

“Okay, okay, I'll go with you,” I said. “Just give me a minute to look for my mind, will you? I seem to have lost it.”

Luckily—at least, luckily for Chester and
Howie—the Monroes were all in other parts of the house, so they didn't see us sneaking out the pet door into the rain.

“This is so cool,” Howie yipped excitedly as we rounded the corner at the end of the block. “It's just like FleshCrawlers number twenty-four, My
Parents Are Aliens from the Planet Zorg.
See, there's this girl named Tiffani-Sue Tribellini, and she's trying to find her mother because the person she thinks is her mother is really an alien. How the girl knows is that every time her mother goes near the microwave she glows. Which is not your normal mother thing to do. So one day—”

“Will you two get a move on?” Chester scolded.

“Chester!” I shouted back. “Do you have a clue where you're leading us?”

“More than a clue! We're going to the last place Bunnicula saw his mother and where I believe we will now find her, waiting for her sonny boy! The movie theater!”

“Oh, goody!” Howie cried out. “Can we get popcorn? Can I sit on the aisle? Will there be coming attractions?”

I didn't have the heart to tell Howie we weren't actually going to see a movie. As it turned out, we never even got to the theater. With the disaster that would soon befall us, I couldn't help thinking I'd been right in the first place. It was a perfect day for napping.

A
BIT
of an explanation may be useful here. Those of you whose memory, like mine, is as full of holes as a garden hose after Howie's played Let's-Pretend-This-Long-Green-Thing's-a-Snake with it may not recall the exact circumstances of Bunnicula's coming to live with us. One night a couple of years ago, the Monroes went to the movies and on one of the seats discovered a dirt-filled shoebox holding a tiny white-and-black bunny. A note in a foreign language read TAKE GOOD CARE OF MY BABY. Because the movie
Dracula
was playing there that night, Mrs. Monroe had the bright idea of combining “bunny” and “Dracula” to come up with the rabbit's name: Bunnicula. This was after she'd had the
anything-but-bright ideas of naming him Fluffy or Bun-Bun. She means well, Mrs. Monroe, but sometimes her taste is decidedly
Brady Bunch.

Now I was not convinced, as Chester clearly was, that Bunnicula's mother—if she in fact had been the one to leave him at the movie theater in the first place—would still be hanging around there. After all, how long could anybody take a diet of stale popcorn and gummy bears? And if she had not stayed there, what would make her want to return? Remorse? But I did find his argument compelling that Bunnicula, for whatever reason, seemed to miss his mother and had gone on his recent rampage out of excitement over Mother's Day. So perhaps it was worth trying to find her. I didn't let on that my motives were different from his. He may have been out to undo some vague grand plan he imagined was under way. He may have been determined to destroy vampire rabbits. J was intent on reuniting them.

Luckily, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and soon the sweet smell of spring blossoms and fresh earth permeated the air. Not to mention certain other aromas of infinitely greater interest to dogs.

“Do you two have to stop at every hydrant?” Chester snapped at one point.

“We're investigating,” I explained.

“Yeah,” said Howie, “maybe we'll pick up Bunnicula's mother's scent.”

“Unless she's a volunteer firerabbit, I don't think that's too likely,” Chester retorted. “Now, come on!”

“How do you know where the movie theater is?” I called out.

“I don't!” Chester shot back.

I would have protested, but what difference would it have made? Chester never allows a minor detail like not knowing where he's going to get in his way. Besides, it really was shaping up to be a beautiful day and, to my surprise, I was glad to be out in it. I didn't even mind that the streets we were trotting along no longer seemed familiar.

After some time, we came to a street that was lined with stores. A new scent caught the attention of my nostrils. I lifted them to the air and sniffed.

“Pizza!” I cried. “Lunchtime!”

“No anchovies on mine,” said Howie. I doubted he knew what anchovies were. He just said it, I
think, because Pete always says it when the Monroes order pizza.

“Will you two get your minds off your stomachs for once?” Chester said impatiently. “Look at those two dogs over there. They seem perfectly content just to be lying in the sun. Why can't the two of you—”

Chester was cut off by Howie's yipping, “It's Bob and Linda!”

I looked closely. A caramel-colored cocker spaniel in a Mets cap. A West Highland white terrier with a lavender bandanna knotted jauntily around her neck. The bandanna may have been different, but otherwise the two looked exactly the same as when we'd last seen them.

“It
is
them!” I exclaimed. “Chester, it's Bob and Linda from Chateau Bow-Wow.”

I don't know whether it was Bob and Linda in particular or the memory of the boarding kennel where we'd met them, but Chester muttered, “Oh, no,” and rolled his eyes. If Pete was an Olympic eye-roller, Chester could have been his coach.

Howie ran on ahead of us.

“Well, look who it is,” I heard Bob saying. “Linda, it's little Howie from that dreadful place the
kids left us last summer.” “The kids” was what Bob and Linda called their owners.

Linda raised herself to her haunches. “Well, so it is!” she remarked. Looking in my direction, she called out, “Yoo-hoo, Harold, is that you?”

“And Chester,” I called back. Chester was muttering under his breath as we approached.

“Well, for heaven's sake,” Linda went on, “whatever brings you to Upper Centerville? This is just too quaint.”