Path: usenet.ins.cwru.edu!news.ecn.bgu.edu!chicagokent.kentlaw.edu!uchinews!vixen.cs o.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.cac.psu.edu!news.tc.cornell.edu!newsser ver.sdsc.edu!nic-nac.CSU.net!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!news.xmission.com!xmiss ion.xmission.co m!not-for-mail From: kralk@big-top.com Newsgroups: alt.devilbunnies Subject: Re: [STORY] Calliope Music Followup-To: alt.devilbunnies Date: 10 Mar 1995 09:59:42 -0700 Organization: DevilBunnies News<->Mail Gateway Lines: 164 Sender: snowhare@xmission.xmission.com Message-ID: <3jq0hu$aus@xmission.xmission.com> References: <3jn5u8$oc3@xmission.xmission.com> Reply-To: kralk@big-top.com NNTP-Posting-Host: xmission.xmission.com On 9 Mar 1995 kralk@dead.meat.com wrote: > > "Oh, poor bunny!" The girl crushed him in a hug. Kralk was > shocked at how easily he was able to feel her ribs. Bloody hell, they > must feed her with a teaspoon. > > "Robin won't let you get hurt," she continued. Her chilled hands > stroked his soft fur. It sent an odd thrill of pleasure through Kralk. > "I'll hide you at night, and let you run around when they go into town--" > > "Being a bad girl again, Robin?" > > Kralk shot out of her arms. A workboot kicked out at his fleeing > form. Clarence, a thick leather belt hanging from one hand, towered over > devilbunny and girl alike. The belt struck with a wet --slap-- as Clarence lashed her across the cheeks. Robin shielded her eyes with her forearms, the rain of blows driving her into the corner of the room. Grabbing her, the circus owner jerked the girl upright. She did not resist when he forced her to spread-eagle herself against the wall; she waited, nose against the trailer wall, for the leather to raise new welts on her back. "Hi, everybunny, and welcome to the show!" Robin heard Clarence gasp. The little deebie bunny capered about the room, a length of drinking straw held in his paws like a microphone. "Whatn' God's name--" he choked out. The belt fell from his nerveless hands. "I'm Floyd the Talking Rabbit, and she's Robin the Remarkable! We're here to dazzle and defy you, astonish and amaze you. Bring along the kiddies, drag in the wife. We've got an absolutely be-bop-blockbuster act for you tonight..." "I'll be damned! A goddamn ventriloquism act." Clarence looked happy. Actually happy. She flinched away as he once again brought his hands. It seemed a miracle when they did not strike, but patted her on the shoulder in friendly approval. "I-I wanted it to be a surprise." The rabbit's patter cut off abruptly the moment she spoke. "Ya shoulda told me earlier. Never would've given you a whuppin' if I'da known." "I was scared, sir." Unbidden came the memory of the puppy she'd found by the road when she was nine. Clarence had been drunk when he'd taken out his pistol. "You swore I couldn't keep pets." "Still don't. This ain't a pet, though--you got him right well trained. 'Tween him an' that throwin' your voice, he'll earn his keep." Clarence clamped one fist around her elbow. Robin meekly followed him as he led her outside; "Floyd" hopped about in their wake. Beryl was feeding the "Hen-rietta Musical Chorus". The chickens pecked at the seed half-heartedly, their feather bedraggled with neglect. Buddy the rooster let out the warbling baritone crow which made him a star. Beryl regularly plucked one of his harem in front of him "pour encourager les autres." So far, Buddy had taken the demonstration to heart. "Hey, Ber. You gotta listen to what Rob's come up with--" ****** "Same to you, bloody molting feather duster." Kralk flashed his fangs at Buddy. The bird tried to peck at him through the bars. Wrinkling his nose at the reek, Kralk surveyed what was to be his home for the near future. The animal acts were kept in a cramped trailer just behind the circus tent. The air was dank, saturated with the odors of urine and rotten woodchips. Paws shooks the bars of cramped cages. Kralk had to fold his ears back to shut out the shrieks rebounding off the aluminum walls. Oh, this was a high-class operation, all right. Robin hefted a wire cage taken from a stack in the corner. Ripping open a plastic bag, she poured in two inches worth of woodchips onto its bottom; a refreshing hint of fresh cedar rose into the air. Robin stooped, putting him into the crook of a bent elbow. The transfer went so smoothly he had little time to protest before his keeper deposited him in the cage. H'ed been in worse, he decided. A draught of outside air from a vent in the walls blew away most of the maladorous atmosphere. In the food dish, Robin put in kibble--stale, but edible. The water bottle she hung on the the side of the cage was filled with fresh water; parched, Kralk tongued a mouthful of to ease his thirst. This would do. "Beryl said it was okay to keep you," Robin said through the bars. "There's a local town five miles down the road--she says 'the hicks'll lap this up like a cat near a bowl of cream.'" "That sounds wonderful!" That fit. Robin in the centre of the crowd, Beryl passing the hat. And the multitalented Clarence picking their pockets from behind. "I want ever so much to make people happy and gay." "You already did, Floyd--" she whispered softly. "Um." Kralk mused at the prospect of being called Floyd the rest of his life. "I just made that name up. It sounded"--he barely suppressed a gag--"cuter. My real name is 'Lawrence'." "That's a nice name." Pause. Robin reached in and scratched behind his ears. "It's been...a long time since I had someone to talk to. Ever since Clar and Ber took me in after my parents died, we've moved around all over the country. Never made friends for long." "Oooo. That's terrible." It was. Kralk remembered the loneliness of those long years of exile. Nowhere to escape the pain in his bones, in his mind. He had known decades of happy life before that; this girl had been living with the same without such comfort... "Yeah." A half-minute of silence. Robin spoke again, her voice crackling with false good-cheer. "But that's over now. We can talk and-- Say, Lawrence. Do all bunnies speak like you? Like, when we people aren't around." "Oh, no." Best give her a *highly* edited account about devilbunnies. "We deebies are much smarter than regular bunnies. Kind've like you would be to a chimp. Or to someone like Clarence." "Shush, they might hear." Nevertheless, Robin giggled at the forbidden sentiment. "Most of the time we live in our own warrens," he continued. "Sometimes, we see people who are so unhappy. We don't like it at all--deebies are so joyful and bouncy, why should the uprights be so down? So some of us go among you to cheer you up with happy songs and fluffs of love!" As soon as I get out of this, Kralk promised himself, I am going to wallow, swim dammit! in raw sewage. Anything to clean this accursed cuteness out of my system. "Wow." Robin grinned. "People like me." "Yes." Kralk injected a bit of genuine sorrow into his tone. His last vestige of humanity, lost forever... "And like my master [sniffle]" "I am so sorry about him. Don't worry, though--I'll protect you. I even got this from your car 'fore Clarence hid it." Kralk blinked. Robin slipped a slim, scratched plastic case through his bars--his palmtop. Outside, Kralk could hear Beryl's querelous summons to Robin to "git them taters peeled, you wilful little brat." Smiling sadly, Robin left the trailer with a farewell wave. Kralk quickly checked the computer. Everything seemed in order--battery was charged, OS running without hiccups. A stroke of good luck in this mess of a situation. Funny thing. He never did say deebies were a technological race. She had apparently figured that out for herself, simply by putting a small computer and a talking rabbit together. Not the widest leap of logic, yet also not the most obvious either. Smart girl. TBC