Chapter Text
“I’m not wearing THAT, an’ that’s final.”
“Oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease,” begged Sophie in her most wheedling tone, looking up at her art instructor with big wide eyes. At age twelve, she was starting to get some of the leggy look that Jamie had already gone through, but she was still shorter than the Easter Bunny by quite a bit.
“No.”
“But it would be so funny, with your Australian accent, playing somebody who’s played by an Australian...”
“Which makes no sense to me, sheila. Why they picked an Australian to do a Canadian...”
“You’re trying to change the subject, Bunny.”
“And you’re not going to win, miss, so stop trying. I’m not wearing it. B’sides, it’s too small.”
Sophie looked crestfallen, but had to admit that Bunny was right. The criss-crossed armour that she’d thought looked like Bunny’s own bandoliers was definitely meant for someone under five-foot-nine in height, and neither of the gloves with the claws would fit over Bunny’s paws.
“What do we do?” she asked. “Pippa can’t get any other costumes from storage, and you’ve GOT to have a costume for you to show up on camera.”
Bunny scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, it’s not an X-Men costume, but I do have something that might do. I’ll be back in a few.”
The Guardian of Hope was as good as his word; in less than ten minutes he had returned, wearing a long green robe with a high scarlet collar and double-breasted buttons up the front, an apron-draped scarlet sash with sporrans around his waist, and an amusing pair of egg-shaped tinted spectacles perched on his nose.
Sophie clapped her hands. “I don’t know who you’re supposed to be, but oh, you look super, Bunny.”
“Never you mind. Let’s get this show rolling. It’s time to remind ‘em all that Spring always returns.”
She handed him the classic book that had inspired her mother to give her the middle name of Lilias, and called Jamie to get the Whoosh channel open.
On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very early. The sun was pouring in slanting rays through the blinds and there was something so joyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of bed and ran to the window. She drew up the blinds and opened the window itself and a great waft of fresh, scented air blew in upon her. The moor was blue and the whole world looked as if something Magic had happened to it. There were tender little fluting sounds here and there and everywhere, as if scores of birds were beginning to tune up for a concert. Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun.
“It’s warm—warm!” she said. “It will make the green points push up and up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots work and struggle with all their might under the earth.”
She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could, breathing big breaths and sniffing the air until she laughed because she remembered what Dickon’s mother had said about the end of his nose quivering like a rabbit’s.
“It must be very early,” she said. “The little clouds are all pink and I’ve never seen the sky look like this. No one is up. I don’t even hear the stable boys.”
A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet.
“I can’t wait! I am going to see the garden!”
She had learned to dress herself by this time and she put on her clothes in five minutes. She knew a small side door which she could unbolt herself and she flew downstairs in her stocking feet and put on her shoes in the hall. She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with the sun pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself and knew that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran around the shrubs and paths towards the secret garden.
“It is all different already,” she said. “The grass is greener and things are sticking up everywhere and things are uncurling and green buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come.”
The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds which bordered the walk by the lower wall. There were things sprouting and pushing out from the roots of clumps of plants and there were actually here and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among the stems of crocuses. Six months before Mistress Mary would not have seen how the world was waking up, but now she missed nothing.
When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, she was startled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw—caw of a crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat a big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely indeed. She had never seen a crow so close before and he made her a little nervous, but the next moment he spread his wings and flapped away across the garden. She hoped he was not going to stay inside and she pushed the door open wondering if he would. When she got fairly into the garden she saw that he probably did intend to stay because he had alighted on a dwarf apple-tree and under the apple-tree was lying a little reddish animal with a Bushy tail, and both of them were watching the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling on the grass working hard.
Bunny had gotten so involved in reading aloud this tale of renewal that he had gotten nearly to the end of the chapter titled “Nest Building” before he realized that he and Sophie were no longer alone in the room. One by one, Sandy, Tooth, Pitch, North and Jack had managed to appear without him noticing, all giving him smiles.
His audience on the screen all seemed to be smiling, too.
He smiled himself, his eyes wet behind his spectacles, and finished off his reading with the lines, “How could I have stayed abed! Th’ world’s all fair begun again this mornin’, it has. An’ it’s workin’ an’ hummin’ an’ scratchin’ an’ pipin’ an’ nest-buildin’ an’ breathin’ out scents, till you’ve got to be out on it ’stead o’ lyin’ on your back. When th’ sun did jump up, th’ moor went mad for joy, an’ I was in the midst of th’ heather, an’ I run like mad myself, shoutin’ an’ singin’. An’ I come straight here. I couldn’t have stayed away. Why, th’ garden was lyin’ here waitin’!”