Kevin the Rabbit
Kevin the Very Old Rabbit was very old. Believe it or not, he was 146 years old.
He had always been old. In fact, when he was born he had glasses and a long white beard, which greatly surprised his mother because she had perfect eyesight and no hair on her face. His dad was called Kevin the Really Old Rabbit, but he’s not in this story.
Now, every Tuesday morning Kevin would go to the post office in Swindon to send a letter to his cousin in London. But today was no ordinary Tuesday morning for two reasons. Firstly, it was his birthday and the second reason is that it was in fact Wednesday. This meant that he was actually 147 years old. The only problem was, he didn’t know it. You see, because he thought it was Tuesday he thought that his birthday was not until tomorrow.
Suddenly, a very watery thing happened. It started to rain.
Not just a few drops but it rained cats and dogs. He ran to the bus stop but the bus stop didn’t have a roof so this didn’t help. He had forgotten to bring his umbrella and his fur was getting very wet.
So he looked around and saw a big shop called Umbrella World, just next to the bus stop. When he ran into the shop he couldn’t believe how many umbrellas were in there. There were millions and billions of them, neatly lined up on shelves.
The first one he looked at was made of silver with a gold handle but this was too expensive. The next one he saw was a plastic umbrella full of holes to let the rain through, which Kevin thought was a very silly idea. Then he saw a lovely yellow umbrella, covered in pictures of monkeys and tennis rackets. It was cheap so he took out his money and bought it.
When he went outside he found that it had stopped raining, which was a good thing and a bad thing. After looking at his watch he decided that he was probably hungry, so he crossed over the road to a fast food restaurant. He bought a Big Mac but threw the burger and bread roll into the bin because, being a rabbit, he only liked the lettuce.
Three and a half weeks later he got a letter from the fast food restaurant. It said,
“Dear Mr. Very Old Rabbit,
Congratulations! You have won a trip round the world in our competition. The plane leaves Heathrow airport at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. Have a good time.’’
Unfortunately, Kevin could only read letters from his cousin so he threw it into the dustbin.
(Adapted from ‘The Very Old Rabbit’ by Gordon Dioxide)