…An excerpt of a new project I’ve begun working on. Enjoy!

It was mid-summer. The wild oat was tall, and bleached by the searing sun, leaving every paddock swaying in golden light. If it didn’t rain soon, there would be nothing but dust and stubble for the sheep come March. It was deep evening. Pluto and his friends were enjoying the juicy, well-watered lawn in the backyard of the long-legged folk.
It was actually against the rules of the Warren for rabbits to expose themselves upon the lawn belonging to the long-legged folk, no matter how well-watered, how nutritious, how delicate it looked. But all afternoon, hidden behind the chookhouse, Pluto had listened to the joyful sound of the sprinklers throwing water onto that flat expanse of green – the only green thing for kilometers around – and Pluto was thirsty for green. The creek bed was bare of it, and there was none of it left on the hillside. But the forbidden lawn looked tender and delicious and plentiful, and Pluto longed for it. So he waited, listening to the tatty call of a willy-wag tail – that little courageous bird wiling away its enemies; he smelt the dust grow hot under the sun; he squinted as the sunlight reflected off some metal in the yard, the light barbing his eyelids. And he dozed, and he waited. A long while later, there was a rustle and a small panting next to him and his little brother Claypipe appeared from around the corner of the chookhouse.
‘What are you doing Plu?’
Pluto stared out at the green lawn.
‘I’m waiting out the heat – and then I’m going to eat.’
He felt Claypipe smile beside him.
‘Wonderful,’ Claypipe whispered. ‘Can I come?’
‘Okay, but keep your ears open.’
‘Yes, I know, I know – the long-leggeds and all that…’ Claypipe twitched his ears with frustration. ‘You needn’t keep telling me Plu.’
Pluto ignored him. Clay was still a kitten and would learn, sooner or later, that there was wisdom in listening to your elders. Pluto was the smallest of his litter, though not the youngest. Born to the great Norm and Whyla Boom, it was a wonder he had not inherited some of his parent’s brawl. His siblings often ripped into him about this, but Pluto suspected his size would come in handy one day and bore the teasing good-naturedly. His family lived in a dry creek bed fantastically guarded by spinifex and rock piles. Other rabbits thought it so too, and by the time Pluto and his siblings were three months old, the creek had grown into a village of burrows and passageways and tracks through the bush, christened ‘Warren Creek’ by the rabbits and ‘Down-Where-The-Rabbits-Are’ by everyone else. It was Warren tradition that the older rabbits took the younger rabbits out on adventures and daring tricks and devilish games to get them used to life in the world. Claypipe knew this and had gone out in search of Pluto for this very reason. Because deep down in his being, like the ringing of a distant bell, something told him it was time for Claypipe – the youngest of the Boom clan – to come of age.

And so it was that the two rabbits had spent the latter part of the day dozing behind the chookhouse as the heat gradually seeped away into blue evening. The crickets started up a round and the sun finally gave up staring at the world, lying down to rest on the horizon. Pluto and Claypipe stirred. Driven by hunger, they left their hiding place – very alert, very eager and very twitchy. Pluto risked the open first, creeping forward, pausing, listening, hopping forward again, pausing, watching, listening. He felt his brother behind him. The delicate taste of green was almost on his tongue…
A door slammed up at the house and the dog (a rabbit-hunting English whippet) barked. Terrified, Pluto and Claypipe jumped, plunging back into their hiding place and sat there trembling for a good fifteen minutes.
‘That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about Clay: it isn’t all fun and games.’
‘Yes Pluto,’ replied Claypipe, somewhat quieted from the fright.
‘Right – let’s give it another go. Ready?’
Claypipe nodded, and the two rabbits took to the open once again, creeping out beneath the coming dusk. The world was heavy and silent. But on the drifting air, the moist scent of freshly-watered lawn – stronger now that they were closer – made both rabbit’s noses twitch furiously. Before long they were nibbling away. Other rabbits joined them and soon an entire host of Pluto’s friends had gathered to gorge themselves on fresh grass.
‘Hey Little Brother – having a nice feed?’
Pluto looked up into the branches of the spreading chinese elm at his friend Glee. Glee was a kookaburra and was just at that minute making those soft, evening kookaburra-y sounds that accompany the twilight of mid-summer when everything is tired and ready for nightfall. But to the rabbits grazing on the lawn, the sound was a gentle, good-natured chucking. ‘Look at you all – stuffing yourselves on forbidden food!’
‘Yes, alright Glee,’ Pluto said half-irritated. ‘We can’t all eat bugs, and I long for something green and tender in this terminal heat and…’
‘Aww, Little Brother. You don’t even know what terminal means,’ Glee said, amused.
‘Yes I do. It means horrid, and ghastly, and unlivable and totally and utterly… well, terminal.’
Glee really laughed then.
‘I think what you mean is that the heat is terminally something (which you failed to specify), but if you wanted to use the word colloquially, right now you might say I am terminally cheerful, while you are terminally irritated.’
Pluto was silent. His guilty conscience was making him behave badly. Glee, in his superior wisdom, had half a mind to teach him a lesson, but decided not to. Pluto would have to learn the lesson himself, which came, not surprisingly, soooner than expected – the very next minute in fact.
While the rabbits had been chewing away on their heavenly delicacies, the Master of the long-legged’s castle had come out quietly to sit on his vereanda with a glass of stout ale beside him and a shotgun very conveniently laid across his lap. He had spent the last ten minutes or so relaxing and watching the unsuspecting rabbits plunder his lawn. The Master didn’t take great delight in killing things (hence the ale) but he loved his lawn a lot and hated the effort it took to keep the rabbits from making it unsightly. In a matter of seconds, he had placed the gun against his shoulder and was peering down the sight, while taking a moment of silence for what was about to die as a result of his excellent aim. The shotgun shattered, splintering the calm quiet, and the rabbits scattered, leaving the pleasant grass – and their wits – behind. Pluto had been bantering with Glee, but at the sound of that sudden, cracking thunder, Glee had cried out in fright and flown off, while Pluto dashed in the direction of the chookhouse. Other rabbits followed close behind. Once safe, Pluto turned to see who had joined him. His companions were all panting and twitching and some had gone quite stunned.
‘Wait, where’s Claypipe?’ Pluto hopped around in a panic. But the other rabbits were too frightened to answer.
‘Where is he? Clay, Clay!’
But if Claypipe was anywhere near, he did not come when Pluto called. Pluto was on the verge of panic himself when there came a warning whistle from somewhere far, far off. The sound of it leapt into Pluto’s heart and lifted him safe to his burrow – for the whistling was his father Norm, whistling him and Claypipe home before the foxes came out in abundance. Pluto had been hearing the sound since he was a kitten and it meant safety, homey fur, and warmth. But he couldn’t go back alone, not without Claypipe. Desperate, Pluto turned to his friends. A wiry little rabbit called Pumpkin agreed to help him look for Claypipe and the two set off into the dangerous night. The shotgun weilder had decided to retire indoors after feeling satisfied he’d scared the creatures enough to warrant a peaceful night’s sleep; besides, the mozzies were getting too prolific to enjoy the evening anyway. Pluto and Pumpkin heard the screendoor slide shut and all was still. Both rabbits hunted beneath the large, yellow moon for what felt like hours, and all the time Norm was whistling for his sons. But Pluto didn’t come. And Claypipe was nowhere to be found.