The Great Rabbit Revenge Plan (16 page)

And he has something else to be pleased about. Because now the Belgian devil is running up the aisle between the tables towards the counter. This does not go unnoticed.

‘Eeeeek!' someone shouts. ‘A mouse. A gigantic, horrible mouse!'

‘Help!' shouts someone else. ‘Help!'

‘Waaah,' shrieks a girl. ‘It's revolting! They put rabbits in the burgers.'

This makes another couple of girls laugh so hard that they almost choke.

Konrad runs after the rabbit. He bangs into a table, a paper cup falls over and someone yells, ‘No, my new trousers!'

I've nearly caught him, thinks Konrad, but just then the rabbit twists away from him and disappears under the tables. Unfortunately, Konrad can't brake that quickly. He has to take one more step, which brings him smack up against Fridz, who is just coming away from the counter with a tray.

‘Have you flipped?' says Fridz.

This is not the moment for a discussion like this.

‘A rat!' yells someone. ‘I saw a rat!'

Anyone who hasn't already been yelling starts to do so now. Konrad is on the floor. As he is crawling under the tables, a chair falls over and almost gets him on the head.

‘Konrad!' That's Fridz.

No time! The rabbit is turning left, and Konrad is after him, on all fours. Someone comes towards him. The rabbit turns right and now it's in the aisle again. Konrad is right behind him.

For a moment, the rabbit stops, and then it runs towards the exit. Its back legs are stretched right out and its little white tail is waving in the air.

‘It's getting away! Oh no, it's getting away!'

Konrad has never heard Fridz sounding like this. He can't see her, but she sounds dreadful. The rabbit is now about three metres from the door. Luckily, it's closed. Oh no, it's not, not any more! The biggest of the bigger boys, the one whose finger was bitten, pulls it wide open.

‘Out with the beast!' he shouts. ‘It bit me! It's rabid!'

The screeching in the fast-food restaurant gets even louder, if that is possible. Oh, no!

Konrad is on his feet again. He's running. More precisely, he's getting up speed. And then he jumps. He jumps like a footballer when they've just scored a goal and really want to celebrate it. He leaps horizontally, lands on his stomach, and slides, with outstretched arms, right across the polished floor of the fast-food restaurant.

‘Yes!' yells someone. ‘Catch it!'

It's Fridz.

And Konrad catches it. At the very last moment, just as it is about to get away, his right hand grabs the right back leg of the rabbit. And he holds on for dear life. The rabbit struggles and kicks, its claws scrabbling on the floor, and it's making this pitiful squeaking noise. But Konrad holds on
tight. There he is, flat out on the floor, with one hand on the rabbit, and all around him is yelling and roaring and din.

‘Police!' shouts someone. ‘Police, fire brigade, police!'

Great idea!

Then Fridz is beside him. She gets hold of the rabbit with both hands and presses it to her.

‘Scram!' she says. ‘Let's make ourselves scarce.'

And she's out the door like a shot. Konrad struggles to his feet. Hands are reaching for him, but he shakes them off. He just wants to get out of here.

Out on the street, he looks around.

‘Wait!' he calls, but Fridz is not waiting. She's running, with a pair of rabbit ears wiggling in the air over her shoulder.

Konrad has a job not to lose sight of her as he runs to catch up with her. She takes a left into a side street, and then a right. Konrad can hardly breathe and he's starting to get a stitch in his right side as Fridz runs into a courtyard and finally stops in front of a building.

‘Here, take it!' she says, as Konrad catches up with her, shoving the rabbit into his arms. And then she's off again, dragging him after her into the house.

Konrad follows her in. What's all this?He looks around: a staircase, a door down into the cellar, a few postboxes on the wall. And no one to be seen.

Oof ! He sits down on the bottom step of the stairs.

‘I'm all in,' he says. ‘Finished.'

The rabbit in his arms has gone totally still. It's just shaking a bit.

‘I'm finished,' he says again.

Secret Weapon

‘Okay,' says Fridz. ‘Take a deep breath. Then we're off again.'

She sits down beside Konrad on the stairs. She's pretty out of breath too.

Konrad takes a few deep breaths. Not so that he can go on in a moment, but because he has something difficult to say. Something very difficult.

‘I'm finished,' he says. ‘I can't go on, and I don't want to go on. I'm not playing this game any more.'

He takes another breath. ‘I'm not doing this rabbit thing with you any more.'

‘Fine,' says Fridz. ‘I understand. It was just a bit much for you.'

Konrad says nothing. He knows that he's the one who saved the whole situation, and it's enough for him that he knows it. He doesn't have to say it. No, he doesn't have to. He only needs to look straight ahead and put on a particular kind of face.

‘Oh, very well,' says Fridz. She's seen the face. ‘You were the great hero. The world champion Flemish Giant catcher. But now we're going up to distribute bunny hairs, right?'

‘Wrong,' says Konrad.

‘And why not, if you please?' Fridz is back on her feet.
She is standing in front of Konrad, looking down on him.

‘Because it's wrong.'

‘You don't say.'

‘Yes, what we're doing is mean.'

‘True.' Fridz takes off her rucksack, sits it down in front of her and takes a look inside. ‘It's totally mean, what we're doing. I'm terribly sorry about that. But unfortunately, it has to be done.' She takes a carrot out of the rucksack. ‘And anyway, it was your idea.'

‘I –,' says Konrad.

‘Please!' Fridz taps Konrad on the head with the carrot. ‘Let's not talk about it now. It can happen that a person gets the jitters just as things are about to come to a head. No problem. Give me the bunny and I'll go on up and do the rest myself.'

‘No,' says Konrad.

‘What?' Fridz lets the carrot fall. She hunkers down and puts her head forward until it touches Konrad's head. ‘What did you say?'

‘I'm not doing it any more – and neither is Paul.'

‘Are you nuts? Who is Paul?'

‘This is Paul.' Konrad strokes the rabbit's head.

‘Since when?'

‘Always. He's just told me. And he's also told me that he doesn't want to make anyone come out in a rash.'

‘You're driving me crazy! Give me the creature!'

Fridz hurls the carrot into a corner behind her. Then she makes to take the rabbit out of Konrad's arms. But Konrad looks at her, she looks at him, and then she drops
her arms. For a while, the two of them squat there looking at each other, head to head, saying nothing.

‘Now, listen,' says Fridz at last. ‘It's my rabbit. You just hand it over, and then, as far as I am concerned, you can vamoose. Is that clear?'

‘The rabbit belongs to your father.'

Fridz stands up. ‘Rubbish!' she says loudly. Very loudly. ‘He doesn't take care of it. He doesn't care about anything. Not about his rabbit, not about my mum and not about me. He only cares about his harebrained Kristine.' She almost shouts the last sentence. ‘And that is why I am going to take the bunny rabbit, and go up to the apartment with it and rub everything all over with it, just as we planned. Do you hear me?'

She grabs Konrad by the shoulders and shakes him so hard that he has trouble holding onto Paul.

‘As we planned,' says Fridz again.

Then she starts crying. And this time it's for real. There isn't the slightest doubt about that.

‘Come on!' wails Fridz. ‘You've got to help me. You promised.' She slips down beside him on the bottom step and wails, her head on her arms.

Somewhere, a door opens and steps are to be heard on the stairs.

‘Let's go somewhere else,' says Konrad.

Fridz doesn't seem to hear him. She's still crying, only a little more quietly.

‘You promised,' she says. ‘You promised.'

The steps are getting close. A woman is coming down
the stairs with a small child in her arms.

‘Could I get past?' she says.

Fridz doesn't look up. Konrad moves aside a little.

‘Aw!' says the woman. ‘What have you got there? Is it a hare?' The child in her arms squeals and stretches out its arms. ‘And what are you doing here anyway? Who are you going to see?'

‘We're just leaving,' says Konrad.

He is trying to get Fridz up off the floor, but with the rabbit in his arms, it's not all that easy.

‘Hey!' says the woman. ‘You haven't answered my question.'

Konrad knows this. But this is not quite the moment for telling the truth. He gets Fridz onto her feet at last and pushes her towards the door.

‘And why is your sister crying?' asks the woman.

She always gets sad when people ask her questions. Konrad thinks it, but he doesn't say it. Instead, he opens the door with his elbow, and nudges Fridz through it with his shoulder.

‘Come on,' he says.

The rabbit is starting to slip out of his grasp. He pushes it up as high as he can on his chest and walks on, with Fridz bringing up the rear. Slowly, step by step, but surely. She's still crying a bit, just a little bit.

They cross the yard and out onto the street, then left, and left again. All the time, Konrad is thinking. Although you couldn't really call it thinking. At least not if by thinking you mean something orderly. Konrad is not thinking in an orderly
way. More than a dozen thoughts are lumbering around in his head, just like the rabbit when he was in the hutch. They are going around in circles, here, there and everywhere and if Konrad tries to get hold of one of them, it slips between his fingers and is gone. Moreover, all the thoughts are difficult, much more difficult than carrying Paul, the Flemish Giant. And he's pretty heavy! So heavy that Konrad isn't going to be able to carry him for much longer.

Which way are they going anyway? Across Berliner Strasse and back to the roundabout. Yes, there's the little park. Could he make it that far? No, definitely not. Paul weighs a ton.

Konrad turns around. Fridz is still behind him. She's looking at her feet, and she's sniffling. She has her rucksack in her hand, trailing it almost on the ground.

‘Wait a minute,' says Konrad. He stops so that Fridz almost bumps into him. ‘There's something I want to try.'

Konrad signals to her to put the rucksack down and open it. She does as he wants and Konrad tries to get the rabbit into the rucksack. It works. Most of Paul fits; only his head is sticking out of the top, which is good, because of breathing.

Konrad takes the rucksack on his shoulders. It's still heavy, but it's easier. They walk on, Konrad in front, Fridz coming silently behind him.

At the big roundabout, they have to cross the road three times, and at last they're in the little park. Konrad takes the rucksack off and sits on the first bench. Fridz sits down beside him, and the two of them sit there silently for a full
quarter of an hour, during which the rabbit thoughts are running riot in Konrad's head.

After a quarter of an hour, the thoughts have finally settled down into the corners of his brain. Now maybe he can get hold of them.

‘Fridz,' says Konrad.

‘Hmm.'

‘I have something to tell you. Are you listening?'

‘Hmm.'

‘Well,' says Konrad. ‘Pay attention now. In a forest, a jungle actually, a long way from here, a long time ago now, a spaceship from the planet Klimbambium landed. But it was damaged by the impact of the landing; so badly damaged that it can't be started again.'

After quite a long time, Fridz looks at Konrad.

‘Huh?' she says.

Good, thinks Konrad. Press on.

‘Exactly,' he says. ‘And the two extraterrestrial astronauts morphed into a double forest snake, in order to guard the spaceship. Because under no circumstances must extraterrestrial spaceships be discovered by humans, because chaos would ensue. As we know.'

‘Tell me, are you out of your tree?' Fridz's eyes are still puffy from crying, but she is starting to look a bit better.

‘No,' says Konrad quickly. ‘The problem is just that the double forest snake didn't notice another extraterrestrial in human form arriving on earth in order to prevent the scientist Franzkarl Findouter from taking the spaceship out of the jungle and into a laboratory.

‘It's getting worse,' says Fridz. ‘That is the stupidest story I have ever heard.'

If Dad could hear this, thinks Konrad.

‘I'm not finished yet,' he says. ‘You'll find the next bit interesting, for sure. The scientist Franzkarl Findouter, who is dead set on winning the Nobble Prize, he has recently left his family and now he's living with his assistant, Dr Kristine Crisis.'

‘You've flipped,' says Fridz. ‘It's all been too much for you. Could I have the phone for a sec? I'd like to ring the loony bin.'

Konrad puts a hand on his pocket.

‘But,' says Fridz, ‘you don't need to be afraid. A couple of nice men will come with stout ropes and take you into a lovely room with lots of nice soft foam on the walls. You can converse all day long there with forest snakes.'

‘Very funny,' says Konrad. ‘Perhaps we could work that into the story later, but not right now. Now we're at the chapter where Franzkarl Findouter's only daughter Luise is taking revenge on her father's new girlfriend.'

‘Ah!' says Fridz.

‘Yeah. She is desperately angry with this Kristine. She wants to do something very mean to her. Guess what she does?'

‘Ho ho.' Fridz taps her finger on her forehead. ‘Don't tell me she lets a rabbit into her flat so that she gets an allergic reaction?'

‘Wrong,' says Konrad.

‘Wrong?'

‘Yes, quite wrong.' He takes the rucksack onto his lap. By now, Paul has got both front paws out and they're peeping out of the top of the rucksack, which looks quite comical.

‘The Kristine in the story hasn't got an allergy to fur. So this Luise has to do something else.'

‘What, then?' says Fridz.

‘Something much worse, but I can't say any more.'

‘Much worse? Great. She sets her flat on fire?'

‘That's stupid. Anyone can do that. It has to be something smart. You see, this Luise is actually pretty smart. I would go so far as to say very smart indeed. I think she's the smartest girl there ever was.' Konrad gives a wink.

‘Hmm,' says Fridz, wriggling around on the park bench. ‘What worse thing does she do, what smarter thing? I can't guess. Why don't you tell me?'

Good question. The right answer would be, ‘Because I don't know myself.' And because you must guess it. But today is a day on which we just don't know when it's better to tell the truth and when not.

‘You'll think of something,' says Konrad. ‘You're just as smart as this Luise.'

‘Wait.' Fridz is getting even more anxious. Paul looks at her out of his rucksack and takes his left paw back in. Just to be on the safe side, perhaps.

‘I know!' cries Fridz. ‘She ties this Kristine to a tree, sprinkles salt on her feet and gets a goat to lick the salt off.'

‘That's mean,' says Konrad. ‘But is it smart?'

‘No,' says Fridz.

‘Try again, then.'

‘Right. She orders her twenty-five pizzas every evening with lots and lots of garlic on them. Is that smart?'

Konrad shakes his head.

‘You're driving me mad. What is smart, please?'

‘If you don't know,' says Konrad, ‘how could anyone know?'

Fridz sits very still again. A few big boys come by, stop and point at Paul in the rucksack. One of them says something. Something that big boys always say before they come over and start making trouble.

‘Get lost!' says Konrad. ‘Or I'll call the police.' He takes the mobile out of his pocket and flicks it open.

It works. The big boys walk on.

Fridz is still sitting quietly. She didn't notice a thing. She must be thinking. What is especially mean and at the same time, especially smart? What?

‘I've got it!' she cries out loud. A few more people turn around and Paul draws his left paw back into the rucksack as well.

‘Tell me!'

‘Luise goes to this Kristine – the one in the story – and says to her that she doesn't like her and that she's a stupid floozy.'

‘Hmm,' says Konrad. ‘Maybe that's mean. But what makes it smart?'

‘Oho!' says Fridz. She shifts over to Konrad and the tip of her nose is once again a millimeter from his. ‘Because it's true,' she says very softly. ‘And it's smart to tell the truth.
You can always tell people the truth and they can't hold it against you. You can't be punished for it either.' Fridz stands up. ‘Let's go,' she says. ‘That's what we'll do now.'

‘What?'

‘Well, what do you think? Stick Paul on your back, and we'll be off.'

What could he say to that? The best thing would be to say nothing at all. And so Fridz and Konrad go back across the three streets at the roundabout. Only this time, Fridz is in front and Konrad is trailing along behind with Paul on his back. When people see Paul, they have a laugh and pass remarks.

The sales staff in Oller's Fashions pass remarks too. For example, that they haven't got anything in that size.

‘Ha ha,' says Fridz as she goes by. Very witty. Maybe they could show her the way to the fur department. She's got fresh supplies. So fresh, it's still warm.

‘You're a character,' say the sales assistants.

On the second floor, it's pullovers that are being piled up this time.

The manageress, Frau Kristine Ahlberger, is in the middle of the passageway, and she turns round just as Konrad and Fridz step off the escalator.

‘Friederike!' she says. ‘Could you not get the door open?' She's about to come towards them.