>The setting: a quiet home, early Friday morning, almost normal routine
The backstory: La Petite was home from college for a holiday break, bringing her two dwarf rabbits with her. They lived in her bedroom while our regular house bunny (Buttercup) inhabited the rest of the main floor. While we planned to introduce them slowly and carefully, that needed to be handled carefully in a neutral territory and with human supervision. For the time being, the pets had to remain segregated.
Early one Friday morning while La Petite was traveling with friends, I loaded my hands with the necessary delicacies (lettuces, parsley, carrots), and proceeded to feed the furry family members. My usual routine includes feeding Peanut and Sadie first, the two tiny visitors in La Petite’s room, followed by feeding Buttercup and letting her out of her cage for the day. This particular Friday, I reversed that, inadvertently leading to The Great Rabbit Escape.
Peanut, cute as can be and just as devious, slipped out the door and went searching for The Other Bunny. He found her behind the couch, and the fur started flying — literally.
Buttercup, his nemesis, is three times his size and weight. She was destined to win any fight, and I was feeling panicky because I couldn’t reach either of them or move the couch without hurting myself. Peanut soon ran out, followed by Buttercup, and they rolled around again like a couple of tournament-bound wrestlers, emitting territorial ‘gas’ and grunting and growling in a way that only rabbit owners know and recognize. When they rolled their furry frenzy into a small table with enough force to knock it over, I jumped into the fray and grabbed Peanut — all three pounds of him, most of it fur. Oh, and teeth. He sunk his sharp carrot-gnawing tools into the palm of my hand, I yelped, and then he realized the fight was over. Mom had him, and he was safe.
I brought him back to the daughter’s bedroom, let him limp under the bed for his sweet friend Sadie to lick his wounds, and then went out to do triage on the Big One. She was fine, but there was a pretty hefty pile of fur tufts on the rug under the overturned table.
Peanut recovered quickly. I checked on him before school, Husband checked on him before he left for work, and both of us looked him over when we came home from work. He recovered too quickly, in fact. That evening when I took in his food, he tried to sneak out again.
I should have named him Houdini.

This post is my entry in Scribbit’s Write-Away Contest for January. The theme is The Great Escape.