Window #6

The lazy-eyed girl takes her bunny to school in her lap. She has to because her mom won’t let her keep it at home. So, she hides it under her bed. Blocks it in with books. Sometimes the bunny eats it’s way through. Yesterday she missed the bus because she couldn’t find her bunny after it ate through Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. So today she holds it with both hands. You’d think maybe she would try a leash. That way it would never get away. We’ve taken up a bet that the bunny will escape before the end of the school year. The odds are even money right now, though that would change if she bought a leash. Those near the back think she wants it to escape, though they haven’t offered convincing evidence as to why. Some people have nothing better to do than speculate about others. We’ve never understood that. They think she doesn’t even have a home. Not a real home anyway. They think her father left years ago and that her mother went crazy living alone like that, vacuuming up all that bunny hair day after day, never understanding where it came from. They think the lazy-eyed girl stays in her room to avoid her mom. That’s one theory. The other is she’s dug a cave in the side of the gully behind her house. It’s possible. It might even be fun to live like that for a while. I bet that’s it, Jimmy says. And so we start another betting pool. By the time we get the odds figured out about where and how she lives, the bunny leaps from her hands and starts hopping down the aisle toward the Bus Driver. At first we think we’re going to get busted. The Bus Driver is going to see that bunny and stop the bus and walk the aisle with lightning bolts shooting from His eyes. But by some miracle He doesn’t see it. The bunny hops up to the first row where no one wants to sit, plops itself in the seat, and wiggles its little nose. The lazy-eyed girl gets up to go after the bunny, then freezes and sits back down. We can’t figure out why. It’s like there’s a leash on her, and every time she steps away from her seat she feels that leash yanking on her neck. Thomas shouts out that he’s starting another pool on whether or not she makes it out of her seat to catch the bunny. All the kids start betting their best lunch items. Nancy even offers up her snickerdoodles. People are pointing and laughing as the lazy-eyed girl stands and sits, stands and sits. That’s when things get strange. Her nose goes funny, starts twitching like she has a horrible itch. Her arms shrink up close to her body, her legs get longer, and her feet grow huge. We stop the betting and stare as white fur sprouts out the top of her head, her face, then down her whole body. Her ears rise out the back of her head. Before we know it, she leaps off her seat and in one bound covers the whole length of the bus, landing in the front row next to her bunny. The Bus Driver can’t help but notice. He slams on the breaks, gets up and stands before the giant rabbit. The two face off. We have to admit her new straight-eye stare is unnerving. Anyone else would turn tail and run. But He’s the Bus Driver. If He so chooses, He can pulverize the bus and everyone in it with one slap of his fist. He reaches for the little bunny, tries to tear it from the girl’s paws. She holds tight, raises both feet, and kicks at the Bus Driver, knocking Him clean into the door. The bus shakes as if the ground itself had shifted beneath it, and the window opposite the girl shatters. Before the Bus Driver can gather himself, she leaps out the open window and bounds away through the drifts. We shout and cheer with excitement until we realize none of us had bet on this turn of events. Now we don’t know how to settle the pool.