Emergency at the carrot field

"Come quickly!" Clarissa burst into my studio. "There's an emergency down at the carrot field!"

I hopped after Clarissa as fast as I could, out of the burrow, and down to the field.

All the other rabbits were already there, looking up in horror. Oh, bless my ears and whiskers! In front of us was the biggest, tallest, hugest fence you ever did see.

"Whatever are we going to do?" wailed Clarissa. "How are we going to get our carrots?"

"Don't panic," said Nigel Floppyears. "We'll find a way! Us rabbits aren't put off this easily."

"If only we rabbits were capable of flying!" I said.

"Why, Bob Tail Rabbit," said Nigel, "I think you've got it! Wait here, everyone." Nigel rushed to his workshop. Bang! Saw! Ow! Huff! Puff! A few moments later, he reappeared. "Look, this is what we need!"

"It's a cap, and it's able to fly! I'll be over the fence in seconds. Winston: the scissors!"

We watched Nigel rise into the air.

Up...

Up...

Up, until he was just a speck in the sky...

...and then not even that.

We waited.

After a while, Clarissa said, "Of course, Nigel has found a way to get up... but how is he going to get down again...?"

How to increase your popularity

To make yourself popular, make cake...

...for all your friends!



(Just make sure that you keep a slice for yourself.)

Forward into the cave

---

New readers might like to start with the previous chapters in this story:

Part 1: Drifting
Part 2: What happened next
Part 3: Under the sea

---

"So what happened next?" I asked Great Aunt Dahlia. "Grandma Lily swam through the cave, and found the golden carrots. What did she do?"

"Well, young Bob Tail, she did what any rabbit would do. She took off her hat, and filled it with carrots."



"But as she was struggling to put her hat back on her head, she heard a noise behind her. Just a single pebble falling; but then another and another. She turned around: rocks were falling everywhere!"

"In a trice, the entrance was blocked. She looked all round the cave for another way out, but there was none."

"There was no going back the way she came. So she did the only thing she could do: go forward."

"But you said there wasn't another way out!"

"She did what any rabbit would do: she burrowed."



"She dug and dug and dug. Kept going until her paws were worn down to the bone. Just as she thought she couldn't dig another pawful, the earth in front of her fell away, and she tumbled through the hole."

"Was she out of the cave?" I asked.

"For a moment, she didn't know where she was. Then she heard a voice, more of a growl, and then a wicked laugh. Terrified, she opened one eye, and then the other. And then she screamed!"

"What was it?"

"A pirate! The biggest, baddest, bunny pirate ever to sail the seas."

"Captain Jack Rabbit!"