The sun shone brightly on the prairie grasses swaying gently in the late afternoon breeze on a stretch of pasture land near Wilroads Gardens, Kansas. A tantalizing aroma filled the air as industrious coyotes scurried back and forth amongst the campfires in the middle of the camp. At the center of the campfires was the largest campfire, and hanging over it was a large pot, its contents boiling dangerously close to the rim. About fifty yards from the campfires was the head coyote’s den, and continuing in a circle around the campfires were all the other dens. Halfway around the circle was Cornelius the Coyote’s den.
A large coyote with coarse brown fur lay stretched out in front of the den, enjoying the warm sun. This coyote was Cornelius. He was snoring loudly, twitching occasionally when he came to a good part in his dream. He was dreaming of the upcoming annual football game that pitted the Clever Coyotes against the Daring Deer clan. Although that was their official name, Cornelius secretly called them the Dense Deer. He was dreaming up strategies in case the Whitetail Deer brought along their cousins, the Mule Deer. Cornelius especially loathed the Mule Deer, because they always jumped right over the coyotes and bounced into the end zone untouched. Just as Cornelius was reaching the climax of his dream, he was startled awake by his two brothers, Cardell and Colgate.
“Wake up, Cornelius, what are ya doin’ sleeping? It’s almost supper time and someone needs to go make sure the yucca juice is boiling.” Cardell said, giving Cornelius a shove. Cornelius sprang up, glaring at Cardell.
“Ah, why can’t someone else do it? You know I hate yucca juice. Why anyone likes it is a mystery to me. The very name describes it! Yucca, yuck!”
“Stop trying to be funny, Cornelius.”
“Yadda yadda. What are we having for supper anyway? I hope it’s fried rabbit with mice filet.”
“Sorry. We’re having gopher stew with flapjacks.” Colgate said.
“Sure hope we have plenty of Juneberry syrup. Plain flapjacks are the epitome of dull, colorless food.” Cornelius sighed.
“You ran us out of Juneberry syrup yesterday, Cornelius. We only have maple syrup.” Cardell informed him.
“WHAT? Oh yuck! I can’t stand maple syrup!” Cornelius groaned.
“Well, you’ll have to get over it. Now go on, the yucca juice won’t make itself!”
Cornelius narrowed his eyes in disgust and slowly trudged over to the vile smelling pot that contained the boiling yuccas. As he stirred, his stomach began to growl angrily.
“Ah, forget it! I can’t stand this any longer! I’ve gotta go hunt myself a rabbit!” With that, Cornelius dropped the stirring stick into the pot and trotted off.
~
In a den on the other side of the pasture, Ruchika the Rabbit was going through lessons with her three bunnies, Reed, Ryden, and Ritha. They were momentarily stuck on a particularly hard math question.
“Ma, it’s just too hard!” Ryden whined, stamping his foot in frustration.
“Yeah, Ma, make Ritha do it, she’s the one with all the math smarts.” Reed exclaimed, throwing his writing stick on the ground and turning to face Ritha.
“Oh, well, if that’s the case, then you have to do all the readin’, and Ryden has to do all the writin’!” Ritha said, turning her nose up in a smug smile.
“Now, now, children, settle down. All three of you must do your fair share of all the subjects, not just one.” Ruchika sighed and looked at the three frustrated faces.
“All right, we’ll take a short break and come back to this later.” Reed, Ryden and Ritha whooped for joy and then settled down to play with their various toys. Ruchika stored her supplies in the school cabinet and then got up to start supper. She heard a faint rustling and glanced over her shoulder at the door. Nothing. Nonetheless, something didn’t feel quite right, so she set the flour bag down on the counter and moved towards the door. As she opened the door, she caught a glimpse of a large coyote sniffing around the den. Ruchika gasped and slammed the door, leaning hard against it, her heart pounding. She felt the coyote scratching at the door.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Ritha asked suddenly, looking up from her dolls. Ruchika gulped, struggling to keep the door closed. Her mind raced, trying to think of a way to save her baby rabbits. She wouldn’t be able to hold the door much longer. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. It was risky, but she had to save her three R’s.
“Stay here, and don’t come outside!” She firmly instructed the three wide-eyed rabbits. Then she took a deep breath and burst out of the door, speeding away across the prairie. She glanced back to make sure the coyote was following her, and then sped on.
Ruchika ran and ran, her mind spinning with ideas. She knew she couldn’t outrun the coyote. But she did know what she could do. She ran until she was sure she was far enough away from her den, and then, summoning all her courage, she stopped short and whirled around to face the coyote.
~
Fifteen minutes earlier…
Cornelius was getting hungrier and hungrier, and getting madder than a hornet with each minute that passed. He’d better find a rabbit, and find it soon. He stopped short, sniffing the air. He caught a whiff of something and rustled around, trying to find the scent. Then he found it! It led straight to a den that was hollowed out of a little hill. Cornelius smiled in satisfaction. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get the rabbit out of the den. He scratched at the door, trying to think of a good idea. Then all of a sudden the door burst open and a plump rabbit raced out. Cornelius started to follow the rabbit, but then he got a glimpse of three little rabbits huddled inside the den. He considered getting them, but then decided against it. The one that ran was nice and fat, and besides, he’d always loved a good chase. So he sped after the fleeing rabbit.
He was just closing in when suddenly the rabbit skidded to a stop and whipped around, looking him in the eye. What? Cornelius’s eyes widened in surprise and his brows furrowed in confusion. But then his hunger overcame his curiosity and he crouched to leap on the rabbit.
“Now you just wait a minute there!” Shrieked a shrill little voice. Cornelius froze and gulped when he realized it was the rabbit who had spoken.
“W-what? You can -- talk?” Cornelius sputtered.
“Of course I can! What, you think only coyotes can talk?” The rabbit sneered, but Cornelius detected a slight shaking in the otherwise confident tone.
“Well, no, I’m smarter than that. I suppose you have a name and all that, too.” Cornelius eyed the rabbit.
“Well, of course!” The rabbit exclaimed. “My name is Ruchika.”
“Ru-Ru-- Ru WHAT?” Cornelius stuttered.
“Oh never mind, just call me Ika.” The rabbit replied. “And what is your name?”
“I-I’m Cornelius.” Cornelius narrowed his eyes, wondering if this rabbit was trying to trick him.
“Cornelius. That’s a long name. Can I call you ‘Li’?”
Cornelius snorted. “No, I abhor that name.”
“How about ‘Nel’? Or ‘Lius’?”
“No, and no! Nel sounds too much like Nellie and Lius rhymes with Prius. I detest those cars!” Cornelius glared at the rabbit.
“Okay, how about ‘Corny’?”
“NO!” Cornelius said emphatically. “Would you stop that? You’re aggravating me, and when I get aggravated and hungry at the same time it’s not a pretty sight for little rabbits like you.”
Ruchika reared back and quickly apologized.
“But you can’t eat a rabbit who talks to you. Besides, you know those really tasty rabbits you come across every once in awhile?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, I’m one of the last of that long line of tasty rabbits, and if you ate me, there wouldn’t be anyone to carry on that line.”
“Ha! There are those three little rabbits of yours back in your den.” Cornelius grinned slyly, licking his chops.
“But if you ate me, there would be no one to raise them, and they would die, too.”
“What about their daddy? He could raise them.”
“He got run down by a wolf a few weeks back.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that… One less rabbit for me to eat.”
Ruchika gasped, shocked at his cruel lack of sympathy.
“Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’m getting hungrier and hungrier, and I aim to get me a rabbit cookin’ in no time. Preferably one that’s easy to catch. Like you.”
“B-but, you don’t have any Juneberry syrup. Everyone ‘round these parts knows that Cornelius the Coyote must have Juneberry syrup on everything he eats.”
“I’ll just jog over to the general store an’ get some. No problem.”
Ruchika thought a moment, and then said,
“Say, Cornelius, you know that upcoming game against the deer?”
“Yeah, but don’t you try to change the subject on me.”
“Well, I was over on their side of the pasture the other day, and I came across a packet that some careless deer had dropped. It had their strategies in it.”
Cornelius’s ears perked up, and he leaned closer.
“Oh? And what does this have to do with me?”
“Well… We could call a truce. In trade for that packet of strategies, you would have to agree to leave me and my baby rabbits alone.”
Cornelius pondered this. It was a very tempting idea, but it wouldn’t accomplish his main goal: supper.
“Well, I don’t know, Ika. I’d still be hungry.”
“Well, I was getting to that. You see, I was just starting supper when you interrupted. I could make enough for you, too, and,” Ruchika paused, grinning. “I just happen to have a bottle of Juneberry syrup sitting in my cabinet.”
“Juneberry syrup?” Cornelius grinned ear to ear. “Well, you know I can’t turn that down!”
“Shall we shake on it?”
“Certainly.” So the coyote and rabbit shook hands and turned towards the rabbit den, joking and laughing like old friends.
“I can’t believe I’m being so sociable with a rabbit.” Cornelius chuckled, shaking his head. Ruchika laughed.
“Me either. I mean, talking to a coyote. I’ll be a living legend!” They both laughed.
“I just need to stop by the farmer’s house and see if I can sneak any lettuce out of the garden.” Ruchika said as they neared a farmstead.
“Certainly.” Cornelius nodded. They bounded over to the garden. Suddenly, there was a faint click in the distance. Ruchika looked up just in time to see the farmer aiming his rifle.
“Cornelius! Look out!” She screeched, but just as she did there was a loud bang, followed by the whistling of a flying bullet. Cornelius fell with a yelp and a thud.
“Cornelius!” Ruchika ran to him just as another bang filled the air. The bullet hit its target, and that night the farmer and his wife sat down to a supper of fried coyote with a side dish of rabbit.
The End!
Note from the author:
I just wanted to point out a couple things in case you hadn’t already noticed them. One night I was thinking about names, and I thought it’d be neat to have someone name their children after the three R’s. You know, Readin’, Ritin’, and ‘Rithmetic. But I decided those would be pretty poor names for children, so I came up with Reed, Ryden, and Ritha. I didn’t know how I could use them until my English book instructed me to write a story, and ideas came flooding into my head. I decided to name the three rabbits the ‘R’ names.
The other thing you might not have gotten is the title. You probably wondered why I named this story “Whistling Through the Air”. Well, if you’re really smart, you might have figured it out at the end of the story, but in case you didn’t, I named it that because of the whistling of the bullets. Sorry if the morbidness of the story makes you queasy. I was cringing at it myself until I modified it a little bit with the part about Ruchika going to steal some lettuce. That made me feel a little bit better about her getting shot in the end. I had to make the readers (and myself) dislike her some. Originally I was going to make her be a Cottontail rabbit, and she and Cornelius would become friends and it would end there, but then I liked the idea of the surprise ending, so Ruchika is actually a Jackrabbit, not a Cottontail. That helps a bit in the dislike factor, as well.
If you’re wondering what happens to the three R’s, I really don’t know yet, but as I wrote that I suddenly got a great idea for a sequel to this story... We’ll see if I decide to write it or not! I think that’s all I had to say. Thanks for reading!
Here's Ruchika and Cornelius. (Haha, j.k. But the rabbit IS dead)
