The Crown of Babalow

By Bilbo-sama

In walked (well, hopped) in, to my surprise, a rabbit. Its fur was colored dark gray and had floppy little ears (must be a Mini Lop or something). The rabbit was nearly full-grown and yet still retained its childlike curiosity as it hopped about, exploring my bedroom.

It sniffed with its rapidly twitching nose a sock, only to shake its ears in disgust after realizing the sock smelled terrible. I watched it for several minutes as the rabbit hopped around to sniff random and occasionally nudge objects out of the way before turning away to continue reading a Jane Austin novel (which my parents thought was too advanced for a nine-year-old like me but let me try it out anyway).

And then suddenly, I heard an outraged cry.

“Hey you,” said a squeaky voice, “What did you do to the Crown of Babalow?” I blinked, confused. What on earth is the Crown of Babalow?

“Er…what?” is all I could say. The rabbit is talking. Since when can rabbits speak, especially in perfect English?

The rabbit tried to look angry but ended up looking adorable when it screeched, “The Crown! The Crown! What did you do to it?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Lies! You stole the Crown of Babalow and you must’ve destroyed it to hide your guilt. Confess, thief! Where is it?” the rabbit growled.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t steal it, go away you crazed carrot muncher!” I retorted.

“Why you insolent…” the rabbit started before being interrupted by my little brother, Dan, walking in.

“Aaaaannie,” he wailed, “I lost my new bunny!”

“Is your rabbit this angry little yapper?” I pointed to the gray mini lop that was glaring at me accusatively.

“Chelsea!” Dan squealed, “There you are!” He picked up the irate creature and held her (apparently) to his chest, ignoring her protests.

“You both shall pay for your insolence,” grumbled the rabbit. Dan seemed to take no notice.

“Uh, Dan? You do realize that the rabbit is talking, right?” I nervously asked.

“Aw, Chelsea always does,” was the shocking reply, “ever since we found her yesterday.”

“Hey! Who are you calling a girl?! I’m totally male!” was the rabbit’s indignant cry.

“…But you said your name is Chelsea and that’s a girl’s name,” Dan pointed out.

“It could be in YOUR language but it’s a buck’s name in mine,” answered the rabbit in an annoyed tone, “Now, for the last time, where is the Crown of Babalow?”

“We don’t have it and nor do we know what it looks like,” I said.

“Its flat, round, and brown,” the rabbit said.

“That’s not going to help us.”

“It also looks like that thing on the box the strange human used this morning. I still can’t decipher what it says though…”

And then we both realized what the rabbit was talking about. Did he mean…?

“A pancake? The Crown of Babalow is a pancake?” I blurted out, “We have those for breakfast!”

The rabbit’s eyes seemed to bulge in horror, “YOU ATE THE CROWN OF BABALOW?!”

“It could’ve been anyone! We all had pancakes this morning!”

Chelsea’s head lowered sadly, “then…I have failed…

And then, Dan had a brilliant idea, “Why don’t we go downstairs and make another pancake and claim that it’s the real Crown of Babalow?”

The rabbit blinked and said calmly, “I guess we can do that…”

So we spent the next ten minutes making a pancake…er…crown. We put it on a plate and waited for it cool and harden. Then Dan and I bribed the rabbit with carrots just so he can tell us where we can drop off the pancake. Surprisingly, there is a rabbit hole somewhere in the backyard.

We set Chelsea down on the grass and watched him quickly hop towards the hole. We followed, holding the plate with the pancake.

“Place it on my head,” he instructed. Wanting the ordeal to end faster, I put the pancake on his head and he inched near the entrance and yelled, “I have found it!”

Out popped two large wild rabbits and a gray one that was a bit smaller than its bodyguards and had a majestic look about it. Its eyes shone with wisdom but also showed that it was slowly going blind and yet in its aged being, the old one also seemed intimidating.

Chelsea and the old rabbit chatted quickly in a language I never heard of. He managed to transfer the fake Crown of Babalow to the king (well, it’s voiced masculine to me).

The king (was he Babalow?) paused for a minute, thinking and said something to Chelsea that made him reply in disappointment. The king and his cronies and jumped back into the rabbit hole and disappeared.

“After all that, I’m still banished,” I heard Chelsea mutter.

“So what are you going to do now?” Dan asked.

“I might as well live the rest of my life with you humans. I’ll probably live longer or something.”

Later that day we told our parents about it but they didn’t believe us and thought we were hallucinating from being out in the hot July sun too long. What was even stranger was that our new pet never spoke again although occasionally I could’ve sworn I heard him laugh at us when we mess up and mutter curses under his breath when he got angry. He loved the attention and the baby carrots we gave him at times.

It’s odd though, sometimes I can hear rabbits, wild or tame, speak in their fast-paced gibberish ever since meeting him.

It was until I was in my junior year in college, four and a half years after Chelsea died from old age, that I realized that the language the rabbits spoke was a bunny variation of Esperanto.

If I knew that sooner, I would’ve managed to say goodbye in his own mother tongue when he left this world.

The End