Easter on Parade: The Adventures of Black Rabbit and the Mulberry Tree!

“Merriment … that’s a jolly happy word,” said Blackie. 

The Back Rabbit was feeling marvellous. Jolly marvellous. Bubbling over with merriment as blood courses through his body. 

“Absolutely, stupendously jolly marvellous!” he yelled. “That is a jolly happy word” he said. 

He could feel it in his bones. 

What he could see of La-La-Land, it looked perfectly fine, too.  

As he looked over La-La-Land, from his front porch, he saw that every animal was leaping around.  

They must be caught up in a kind of merriment. 

I wonder whether it’s something in the grass. 
 

F E A T U R E 

MAIN: “Here are two portraits of me and the critics say they are rather flattering,” Blackie boosted. 

“How extra-ordinaaaary!” he said, with a modicum of goodly mirth. How extra-ordinaaaary.” 

The Black Rabbit felt like leaping too. 

He tried it. He leapt very high. 

He tried it again. He leapt even higher. 

He thought he might try it again. He did. He leapt so high he thought he would never come down. 

He plummeted down to earth and rolled all the way to the river. 

“How extra-ordinaaaary!” he said.”  

“Those animals must be in peak form,” he muttered to himself. 

With all that leaping around the Black Rabbit began to feel tired himself.  
 

All ready to go romping around the Mulberry Tree. 
 

“Fatigued, in fact. The bones are tired, he muttered. He looked at the other animals and they were still leaping.” 

All of a sudden he stopped walking and yelled out, “Where am I, where am I. I know La-La-Land like the back of my hand. This is ridiculous.”  

He looked up-the-hill, down-the-hill and to the left, and to the right. 

He sighted the Mulberry Bush. Only one. Oh, and four rabbits popped out.  

The rabbits were bright-eyed and full of smiling. Each rabbit was standing around  

the bush holding a piece of multi-coloured tape. 

And then they were off … singing and dancing. 

“How extra-ordinaaaary!” he said, in a rather high voice. 

Next, the rabbits were singing in front of a wash tub, with a new verse to the same song. 

“How extra-ordinaaaary!” he said, in a higher voice than last time. 

The four rabbits were busy hanging their clothes on the line to dry. 

And all were singing a verse of the same song. 

When they finished, the four rabbits darted into their house.  

They emerged minutes later with a pile of schoolbooks, some wrap and string. And off to school went the four rabbits. All were singing, quite happily, “going to school on a cold and frosty morning.” 
 

There they go, singing and dancing, and behind them is the only Mulberry Tree in La La Land. 
 

Next moment, he was alone.  

“I’ll wonder how long they’ll be,” he thought. 

I hopped back to the Mulberry Bush and tried to emulate the rabbits singing and dancing. 

I tried singing. 

I tried skipping and hopping to the same tune. 

The next thing I knew I was doing it. I was doing it … singing and dancing. 

“How extra-ordinaaaary!” he said in a voice that would have drowned out all of La-La-Land. 

At last, just over the hill I heard the four rabbits heading for home. 

They were singing and dancing. 
 

Meanwhile, the bird up the Tree, is enjoying the pomp and earing all the mulberries! 
 

“This is the way we come out of school on a cold a frosty morning,” all four rabbits sang. 

I ran to meet them … and joined in. 

They laughed at me. I laughed back. 

All five of us were singing and dancing. “Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush early in the morning …” 

They were out of sight.  

“I got my wish”. “How extra-ordinaaaary! How extra-ordinaaaary!”.  

He thought a jiffy. He started to feel sad. So, so sad. 

Why did he do it? Why, why, why?

<< Frank Morris 

Do you want to grow a Mulberry Tree? 

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL GRAND YEARS READERS.