The Hare, The Maltese and The Princess

As we approached the Princess’ castle, (Ok, it was Sara’s condo.) we heard Gracie (the Maltese) barking frantically. This was not her typical ‘Hurry up! I can’t wait to jump all over you’ bark from inside the front door. This was frantic. It was more like, ‘Get out here quick! You’ve got to see this and do something about it’ from-outside-on-the-patio bark. Gracie actually communicates quite well for a dog.

Sara went out to see what caused all the commotion. Within seconds, I heard her shriek as only a princess can. “Mom! Go out there and see what that is!” she screeched as she ran inside and slammed the door behind her clutching Gracie tightly to her chest. “Hurry!”

There are things that I will hurry to do. I will hurry to Macy’s to use my 20% off coupon. I will hurry to Dillard’s to get those shoes I saw yesterday. I will hurry to take a shower when I’m running late. My list of things-I-will-hurry-to-do does not include running through her back door into her small-enclosed patio to investigate “what that is.”

“What does it look like?” You’ve got to start somewhere, right?
“I don’t know. It’s I think its an animal.” She thinks it’s an animal?—as opposed to a vegetable or a rock?
“How big is it?” This is an important bit of information if I’m going to consider going out there.
“I don’t know. But I think something is wrong with it.” I’m hoping for a small chipped rock or a wilted carrot.
I made my decision. “I’m not going out there, Sara.”
“Mom, you HAVE to! We can’t just leave it there.”
“Oh, but we can. And we are going to.”
“Mo-om.” The two-syllabled ‘mom’ gets me every time.
“Ok. But you’re coming with me...and leave Gracie inside.”

So the brave hunter and the timid Princess carefully opened the door and crept silently in the direction of the corner of the fence where the unidentified—apparently injured—creature was lying on its back, all four legs twitching in the air.

“What are you going to do?” the princess whispered in my ear while standing safely and closely behind me.
“I’m not going to do anything. It’s dying,” I whispered back lest the six-inch beast suddenly jump up and attack us.
“You have to do something. How do you know it’s dying?”
“I’m a mother. We know these things. But I’m not doing anything. I’m not ITS mother.”

About this time, the unidentified dying creature staggered to an upright position sending us screaming and running to the safety of the castle.

Peeking through the closed blinds (you can never be too careful), we squealed like girls as the baby bunny shuttered and fell to his back with all fours in the air again.

“Mom, you have to do something. That thing can’t die on my patio.”
“It is dying on your patio. Get over it.”
“You have to get it off!!”
“And just how do you propose that WE do that?”
“I don’t know. You just go pick it up and throw it over the (eight-foot privacy) fence.”
“You have got to be kidding. I’m not touching it. Do you have a shovel?”
“You’re not going to beat it to death, are you?” asked the wide-eyed Princess.

We went to the tool shed and surveyed her pathetic choice of gardening instruments. (Idea!) “Do you have a pitchfork?” asked the evil mother.
“Mom! You wouldn’t!”
“Nah! I was just kidding. Hand me that BBQ skewer.”

Eventually we found a pair of garden gloves. After several attempts to approach the dying creature and just as many retreats, I scooped the pitiful thing up in my heavily gloved hands and fearfully carried it out the patio gate and gently set it beside the big oak tree.

Locking the gate securely, we pulled the hot tub steps over to the fence so we could observe from a safe vantage point. Against her protests of, “It’s going to die. It doesn’t need water! Don’t go out there!” I took a small bowl of water and set it near the critical creature and we went to Starbucks to calm our frayed nerves.

When we returned, we carefully mounted the hot tub steps and peered cautiously over the fence. The bunny was gone. I like to think we saved a life that day…or perhaps we just provided some predator with a convenient and tasty snack.