Children Story: How to Catch a Rabbit

[Amagine]

In our neighborhood, there’s a rabbit. Not just any rabbit but a real, big, grey rabbit. My little sister wants it because it reminds her of her stuffed animal at home. I want it because he reminds me of Bugs Bunny. We both want it because we always wanted a pet but our parents didn’t want to buy one. “Pets are really expensive,” they’d say, “We can’t afford one right now.” That’s why when my sister and I saw the rabbit for the first time; we knew we had to have him. We figured, instead of buying a pet, we’ll just catch one! Once we decided what we we’re going to do there was just one question left…how do you catch a rabbit?
The first thing we tried was to lure it with his favorite food.
“What do rabbits even eat?” my sister asked.
“Well…Bugs Bunny likes carrots,” I replied, “So we can try that.”
“Okay then we should also get a box and a stick to hold it up with so we can catch it.”
“Good idea!” I exclaimed. We found a box, a stick and took a carrot from our refrigerator. After carefully balancing the box on a stick and placing a carrot underneath it, we were ready.We had the trap set in our backyard where the rabbit sometimes visited. When we actually saw him coming, we both got pretty excited.
“Here come Bugs” I whispered.
“When we catch him, we’re naming him Buster,” My sister said.
“No, his name is Bugs!”
“Buster!”
“Bugs! I’m older so I’ll decide what we name him!” I exclaimed.
“Umm…what happened to the carrot?” my sister asked while pointing at the empty ground underneath our box. Just as she had said that, we both saw Bugs hopping away happily with the carrot in his mouth. “Well there goes that idea…and our carrot,” my sister said.
“I have another idea,” I replied.
The next idea was to get close to the rabbit and then grab him.
“We can’t get close to him or he’ll run away. Why do you think we’re coming up with plans in the first place?” my sister asked.
“That’s why we’re going to disguise ourselves as rabbits to fool him,” I replied.
“I don’t think he’ll fall for it.”
“We’ll see.”
We went into our rooms and both found bunny ears we wore last Easter. Since my ears were green, I wore a green shirt and some shorts. My sister’s ears were yellow so she wore a yellow dress. “We look the part. All we have to do is hop around like rabbits,” I said
. “Are rabbits even yellow or green?” my sister asked.
“Who cares?” I replied with a shrug.
We found the rabbit in our neighbors’ yard this time. “Alright, follow my lead,” I told my sister. I started hopping towards Bugs as my sister followed me. Bugs’ ears perked up as he stared at us. He froze. We froze. We all just sat there staring at each other. When I had enough of staring, I hopped over one more time…he ran. “Don’t let him get away!” I shouted. We chased him into Mr. and Mrs. Robinson’s yard. We chased him into the park, down some hills…until THUMP! THUMP! SPLAT! While Bugs hopped down the hill, my sister and I fell down one! We were obviously not bunnies. “I have one more idea,” I said to my sister as we brushed ourselves off.
“This is going to be the last one!” she replied.
My last idea was to dig a hole and then cover it with sticks and grass. We would chase Bugs until he fell into our trap! “That sounds really mean,” my sister said.
I replied, “Do you want a real pet bunny or not?” She helped me dig the hole in the end. When we were done, we spotted Bugs in Mr. Hanley’s yard this time. “Let’s lead him into our trap,” I said. We ran over to him and when he saw us approaching, he started to hop away.
“Let’s get in front of him so we can lead him our way,” my sister said. We hurried ahead of Bugs which made him turn the opposite way. He was heading straight for our trap!
“Come on a little more!” I yelled as he got closer and closer…until…CRACK… SWOOSH! He fell right into our trap!
My sister and I jumped for joy. Finally, we caught ourselves a pet! We looked down at Bugs but there was something wrong. “He looks really sad,” my sister said. His eyes were so big in fear that I thought I even saw tears. “We should let Bugs go free,” my sister said.
“No way!” I shouted. “Do you remember what we went through to get him? We almost got stuck in a box, we dressed up in smelly bunny costumes AND we fell down a hill!” Just as I said all that, I heard a cry. I looked everywhere to try and see where it was coming from until I realized it was Bugs! I had no idea rabbits could cry! Seeing Bugs cry like that made me feel really bad. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to make Bugs sad. I scooped Bugs out of the hole and placed him down on the ground. Before I could say, “Go be wild and free,” Bugs was already hopping off into the sunset.
“You did the right thing,” my sister said as we walked home.
“I know,” I mumbled, “But it would had been really awesome to have had a pet rabbit.”
When we stepped into the house, what did both of our eyes see? We saw a small brown rabbit hopping around in our living room! “What’s this?” We both asked our smiling parents.
“Well, we heard you guys were going around trying to catch a rabbit,” our mother said.
“We thought, it wouldn’t be too much trouble to just buy you a pet rabbit,” my father said. We both told our parents about how we let Bugs go in the end.
Our mother said, “You guys did the right thing. Wild rabbits like Bugs are meant to free. So here is your very own pet rabbit.”
In the end, I let my sister name the rabbit ‘Bunny’ since in the world, there can only be one Bugs. Sometimes when we’re outside with Bunny, we still see him. Surprisingly, sometimes, he’ll even come and play with us. When he has had his fun, he always hops away, wild and free. Every now and then, I try to lure him to us with a trap. I guess you can say it’s become a bad habit. In spite of that, no matter what, I’ll never forget how I finally had caught a rabbit.

THE END

[chumblefish]

Hi Amagine, I liked your story. There were a couple of typos, and I think the semi-colon should be a comma in "... when my sister and I saw the rabbit for the first time; we knew we had to have him." But I'm just being picky!

I'm not sure it's a children's story. It seems to me it's more an adult's story about children because it was very earthy and realistic with no crazy flights of fantasy, but it was a nice story with a gentle humour that conjured up images of a friendly, safe neighborhood and an idyllic childhood.

Thanks for sharing it : )

[DATo]

An enjoyable read. Nicely done!

[Gingerbo0ks]

A nice story. I liked this as I've just been visiting my sister who has two huge fluffy grey bunnies so it made me think of them.

[Amagine]

A nice story. I liked this as I've just been visiting my sister who has two huge fluffy grey bunnies so it made me think of them.

Thank you so much! I had written this story a long time ago when I discovered rabbits lived in my neighborhood. I tried to catch one once and failed lol.

-- 02 Apr 2017, 13:05 --

An enjoyable read. Nicely done!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it!

-- 02 Apr 2017, 13:08 --

Hi Amagine, I liked your story. There were a couple of typos, and I think the semi-colon should be a comma in "... when my sister and I saw the rabbit for the first time; we knew we had to have him." But I'm just being picky!

I'm not sure it's a children's story. It seems to me it's more an adult's story about children because it was very earthy and realistic with no crazy flights of fantasy, but it was a nice story with a gentle humour that conjured up images of a friendly, safe neighborhood and an idyllic childhood.

Thanks for sharing it : )

Thank you so much for reading it and for your feedback! The story is contemporary because I'm trying to move away from only writing about fantasy or make-believe. I'm trying to write stories that are more realistic but still entertaining for children to read.