Lucinda had three friends, and they were all rabbits. The rabbits, who were sisters, were named Olive, Minnow, and Chesnut, and together with Lucinda they shared a room at Miss Pringle’s Academy For Well-Behaved Girls.
To the discerning reader this story may seem rather dubious, and no one would blame you for thinking, "Rabbits attending a school for girls? Stuff and nonsense!" But when I inform you Miss Pringle was legally blind and too vain to admit it, and that a box of chocolate eggs fell off the back of Mr. Rabbit's truck when he paid his daughters' tuition, perhaps my original premise doesn’t seem so farfetched after all.
At any rate, Lucinda thought it perfectly lovely to have rabbits as roommates. At night they took turns snuggling in each other’s beds and for the little girl it was like sleeping in a soft, fuzzy cloud...
Okay, that’s it—I’m storied out for today. I just finished reading to my own kids and herding them into bed and I’m flattened (I usually write these posts the night before and get Typepad to publish them for me in the morning. I know—tricky, eh?)
Here’s where I was going with it, though, in case you can’t abide a cliffhanger—Miss Pringle and her students set off on their annual field trip to Buckingham Palace for tea with the queen. Chesnut, who was known to have sticky paws, lifted a spoon from the tea service. Minnow, who had a fondness for sweets, filled her rucksack with treacle tarts when she thought no one was looking. Even Olive, who was the eldest and should have known better, danced a highland fling in front of Her Majesty when protocol demanded a curtsy. And all throughout tea she could talk of nothing else but how she adored Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
When it was time to go, Buttons, the royal lap dog, sniffed Minnow's rucksack and sounded the alarm. The jig was up. The Queen unleashed her corgi on the rabbits and Miss Pringle collapsed when she realized not only were her students not well-behaved, they were not even girls.
Scotland Yard was called in and soon the place was swarming with billy clubs. Lucinda, who was hoping to catch a glimpse of Prince Harry, has no choice but to hijack a skiff on the Thames and, with her band of rabbits, sail off to a life of fame and fortune on the high seas. And that isn't even the half of it.
The end.