Four little rabbits, Page 2

they ran after each other. Several times Mommy called them back from the slope.

  Suddenly there was a surprise: two other young rabbits came running up on the field. Baffled they looked at each other. Merry was the first to introduce herself: Hi, I am Merry, and these are my brothers Pete and Charles and this is my sis Joy. Who are you?

  We are Ruff and Bandit. Shall we play tag? The four little rabbit immediately agreed, though Ruff and Bandit were a little older and bigger than our four friends. Despite their name they turned out to be very nice rabbits. Ruff was the first one to tag someone, and tagged Merry. Merry had a hard time to put her paw on someone, and chased several of them in vain, but as she chased Joy, she was suddenly able to tag Bandit as she ran past him. Now Bandit chased Pete. Pete noticed that he was running towards the slope, and at the last instant was able to stop and roll sideways. He breathed relieved, but Bandit was not so lucky. He rolled down the slope.

  When he was down, he felt a bit dizzy but otherwise all right. He tried to climb up the slope, but in vain. He looked left and right along the slope, but the slope everywhere had about the same height along the few meters that he could see. “Try it with a run!” Ruff called to his brother! Bandit started to try it. He tried it first with a short run, then with a longer run.

  The 5 rabbits on top looked left and right, but until the bushes at either end of the field the slope was steep everywhere. Pete ran to the bushes at one end, and, being a small rabbit, he could easily crawl under the bushes. At the other end of the bushes the slope was less high and less steep. Here he jumped down, and ran past the bushes back to where they first had been. He saw Bandit was still trying to run up the slope.

  The others were very surprised to see her.

  “Come!” he yelled to Bandit. “I have found a way up!” Bandit was very glad to see him, and followed him around the bushes. Here they could climb up, and through the bushes they head back to their friends. Ruff and Bandit went back home, and they promised to play again together the next day.

  Do you have friends to play with?

  Our four friends went back with Mommy and Daddy to their beds where they went right to bed and fell asleep.

  Story 5: The rain

  “Mommy, may we go play outside again?”

  It was Joy who asked this. They were inside their own rabbit hole, and they were bored, thoroughly bored.

  Mother replied: “The weather is not nice enough to play outside today, dear. Come, I will show you.”

  They walked to the entrance of the rabbit hole. The sky was not blue, it was grey. There was no yellow disk in the sky. Everything looked gloomy. Strange things were falling down. They could look through them while they fell down. And when they hit the ground, they sometimes disappeared but they could also see them splash and form puddles.

  What do you think was falling down?

  (Answer: rain or raindrops)

  “What you see is Rain”, Mommy explained. “It does not hurt when a rain drop falls on you, but it is cold. Let us go inside again”.

  Charles protested: “But we promised Bandit and Ruff to play outside with them again today.”

  Mommy said that in this rain, Bandit and Ruff would not play outside either, and that they would play inside today.

  Down in the rabbit hole, in the part where they slept, they four little rabbits tried to play tag, but they soon found that playing tag in a small room was no fun. They bumped over each other and over their mother, and mother declared that the four kids should help her. Mommy would dig some new holes in the sides of their hole, so that they would each have their own nest to sleep. Mommy started to dig with her forepaws, and the kids started to shove the loose sand to the entrance of the rabbit hole. Daddy also helped to shove sand to the entrance.

  Charles was the one who worked closest to the entrance. He looked outside at the rain. Maybe Bandit and Ruff were waiting for them to play, he thought. He should go out and tell them. He ran outside. Soon the first raindrop splashed on him. Brrrr! That was cold! His thin fur was soaking wet! He started to shiver, but he thought about Bandit and Ruff waiting for them in the rain, and continued.

  He kept on till the end of the small field of grass in front of their rabbit hole. He felt cold and miserable. Here he waited under some leaves, hoping that the leaves would shelter him from the rain. But no, a big drop fell from one of the leaves right on his nose!

  Daddy came out of their rabbit hole, and ran towards him. But Daddy was not angry with him, as he had feared.

  “Poor boy” he said. “You should have listened to your mother and stay inside. Now you are all wet and cold. Come on with me inside!”

  Together they ran back to their hole. Here it was dry and warm. He was allowed to cuddle against Mommy and soon became warm again. It was time for them to get to bed and they soon fell asleep in their new bed rooms.

  Bonus story 1: The brambles and the fox

  It was a nice, sunny day and Pete, Merry, Charles and Joy were playing outside. It was also a very special day: it was the first time they were allowed to play outside without Mommy and Daddy being present.

  They had gone to the field where they had met Bandit and Ruffian. Pete had sniffed the air to see if he could smell any danger, just as his Dad had done the first time they came here. Not that he knew how danger smelled, but anyway he didn’t smell anything he did not know. They were not afraid of the slope, as they knew where to get up again. They first ate some of the ripe brambles before they started to play.

  They decided to play Bullies. Pete started as the tagger, and the other three had to cross the field and pass Pete without being tagged. On the first pass Pete tagged Joy, so Pete and Joy had to tag Merry and Charles. Somehow they both failed and the two tried another run. This time Pete tagged Merry so Charles was the winner. Now Charles started as the tagger, and they played several rounds.

  Have you ever played tag? What did you like in it? Were there also things you did not like?

  Pete, Merry and Joy arrived at the other side, they suddenly saw something coming through the bushes. The animal was much bigger than they were, brown red and had a pointed snout.

  “A fox!” Pete yelled. They had never seen a fox before, but somehow they all knew it was a fox. “Follow me!” he cried.

  Pete didn’t run back to their rabbit hole. That was way too far off. It was still a very young fox, and it still had to learn how to hunt. But he already did know how to run after them! And he could run faster that they could! Instead of running to their home, Pete ran to the brambles at one side of the open space. While eating brambles he had spotted a small corridor beneath the branches. He ran straight to that low corridor. Merry, Charles and Joy followed him right on his heels.

  The fox had been surprised at first by the four rabbits. It took him a few seconds to realize that he could try to catch these young rabbits. He first looked at them, and then decided he could try to catch his own dinner without waiting for his mother or father. Being bigger, and a born hunter, he ran much faster than our small rabbits. He nearly grabbed poor Joy as she was the last to reach the brambles. Then Joy reached the brambles and the fox crashed into the thorns. Aw! That hurt!

  Our four little furry friends were glad they had escaped and went right back to their rabbit hole, where they told everything to their Mommy and Daddy when Mommy and Daddy brought them to bed.

  Have you ever been afraid? Or chased by someone?

  Tips for story reading and story telling

  -Take time to tell. Even if you have an appointment, or have to do the dishes, or your favorite television program is coming up: is your child not more important than that?

  -Turn off your cell phone! I know your boss can be calling, but if he can wait if you are taking a shower, he can wait if you are taking care of your child.

  -Be relaxed. Reading or telling a bedtime story is quality time, a time of fun with you and your children. It’s no use to be stressed.

  -Stay concentrated. Your chi
ld will know, consciously or subconsciously, if your thoughts are at your work or at your debts instead of with the story and the child.

  -Use the capabilities of your voice. This may sound strange, but there is a lot you can do with your voice. You can vary tone, speed, and introduce accents.

  -Body language is an important aspect of communication. Body language may, for example, even betray an experienced liar. But even if you are sincere, your body language can reinforce or contradict your message. Take time for your child, make eye contact regularly, face either the same way (creating something in common) or look at each other, and delight in his or her responses.

  -Don’t hesitate to give each person a specific voice or accent.

  -Use speed, silences and pauses deliberately. Using them can add to the tension.

  -If you suspect a word is too difficult for your child, feel free to replace it with a synonym that is easier to understand. On the other hand, there is no need to replace simple words with childish synonyms, such as “car” with “toot-toot”. Using normal words will help your child to develop a normal vocabulary.

  -Children love repetition, or familiar rituals. This is one of the reasons that the stories I included have fixed elements, such as a question and the four