THE VERY NAUGHTY BUNNY RABBIT

ONCE upon a time there was a little bunny rabbit, and his name was Roman. He had a grey and white coat; and would hop and skip around his room and entertained his human parents.

BUT one morning Roman’s mother – Mrs. Claire Nose-Twitchin – had to leave the house for the day; so fetched Roman into his exercise run, to be fed and given a drink, before going outdoors herself. 

FIRST she would let Roman hop from his cage into his run.

THEN she prepared a delicious dinner for him.

THEN she gave him a piece of apple as a treat.

Roman was very naughty, and he snatched the fruit.

MRS. NOSE-TWITCHIN tidied up his toys; and then she made what Roman thought was a terrible noise by using the vacuum cleaner.

ROMAN was very messy and yesterday had kicked his droppings everywhere. His mother cleaned these up with her Dyson.

WHEN Roman’s run had been prepared, Mrs. Nose-Twitchin prepared herself to leave the house; for she had to be at work, and did not wish to be late.

To Roman, she said “Goodbye!”, before telling his father – Mr. Sean Nose-Twitchin – that it was time for her to go.

SADLY, Mr. Nose-Twitchin was unwell. He had to remain upstairs, and had been told that he must not leave the house, because he could become rather unwell if he caught coronavirus.

ROMAN’S parents and their friends did not know where coronavirus had come from. Roman and all of the other animals knew that the virus had been given to Mr. McGregor’s cousin in China, after he put their friend David Batty in a pie and ate him!

ROMAN hopped happily around his run. Occasionally he would run through his cardboard tubes, as if he was being chased by a fox or a veterinary nurse.

AFTER a short while, Roman lost interest in his toys. “Where have mummy and daddy gone?” he said to himself.

Roman could hear what sounded like talking from upstairs. Mr. Nose-Twitchin was listening to one of his audiobooks. As Roman neither knew or cared what an audiobook was, he began to feel angry.

ROMAN was quite unable to escape from his run or stamp his foot loud enough for his father to hear.

HE was left with absolutely no choice but to destroy his exercise run.

Roman knew that if he was to shake the bars of the run with his teeth, one of his parents would appear. Sometimes they would be angry with him, and on other occasions they would stroke his head and neck.

ROMAN shook the bars of his run shake-rattle shake-rattle shake-rattle-rattle! He did this with such strength and for so long that he began to give himself a headache.

By this point he was furious. He felt like Mr. and Mrs. Nose-Twitchin were ignoring him and his need for attention.

WHILE there were difficulties in getting noticed by anyone, he knew that there was one way in which he could always get his mother and father to listen.

Roman told himself that if he was to eat the rug within his exercise run, somebody would come to see him.

ROMAN did not enjoy eating carpet. It tasted horrible and made him feel rather sick. His mother and father were always very angry when he did this and would shout. Normally Roman would not like this but today he did not care.

UPSTAIRS, Mr. Nose-Twitchin was in the bedroom and heard Roman making a terrible noise downstairs. Tug-a-tear tug-a-tear tug-tug-tear!

LUCKILY, Roman’s father had a very nice mobile telephone – a Samsung S10. When Roman was a very little bunny, Mr. Nose-Twitchin had placed a webcam downstairs so he could spy on him.

ROMAN had seen the webcam on the wall, but did not know that his father was using it to look at him; he also did not know what a webcam was. This is because he is a rabbit and there are many humans more intelligent than rabbits. Sadly, Watership Down is not a true story.

MR. NOSE-TWITCHIN was able to use his smartphone to connect to the webcam. Once he had seen that Roman was eating carpet, he became very worried.

Mr. Nose-Twitchin shouted at Roman to stop what he was doing,
for he would become very sick if he ate too much of the rug

ROMAN had heard his father’s cries, but as he was a very naughty little bunny, he continued to eat more of the rug! Nom-nom nom-nom nom-nom!

BY this point Mr. Nose-Twitchin was scared. He sent a message using WhatsApp to Roman’s mother telling her everything that had happened.

Mr. Nose-Twitchin’s new smartphone was so clever that it could even be used to make telephone calls. He rang his own father, Grandad Nose-Twitchin to ask for his help.

GRANDAD NOSE-TWITCHIN was quick to climb into his motorcar and drive from his Bristol burrow to Roman’s retreat in Bath.

He was careful not to get seen by any police officer. Boris the Bull had told all humans to remain in the safety of their homes, to avoid getting the nasty coronavirus. Had Grandad Nose-Twitchin been caught by the police he would have been fined! That would cost Roman many weeks of pocket money to pay.

I AM sorry to say that by the time Grandad Nose-Twitchin arrived in Bath, Roman had a bad tummy ache. He had stopped rug munching and sat in the corner of his run, not feeling very well.

Despite feeling poorly, Roman was excited to see his Grandfather and ran up and down his run as if he had forgotten all about his bad stomach.

ROMAN was sent straight to bed and left in his cage all day and night. He didn’t feel very well and wished he was a rabbit in a Beatrix Potter book where he would have been given camomile tea.

Unfortunately for Roman, the only tea kept by Mrs. Nose-Twitchin was PG Tips; and as we all know only monkeys drink this type of tea.

AND despite behaving like a mischievous monkey, Roman remains very much a rabbit. A very naughty rabbit.

THE END