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A Wolf in Four Dimensions
A Don’t Eat the Neighbours fanfic
By Terry Echoes
Chapter 1
To say that living in the English countryside was idyllic would be a crucial misapprehension. Certainly the woodland was rife with trees and crisp fresh air, the soil springing with its edible bounty of life, the wind alive carrying the twittering of gentle birdsong and the soothing rustle of leaves. But if your neighbors were a pack of wolves, or mad as March hares, some of the effects of nature would naturally be lost on you.
One might think there’d be little animosity between Wolf and Rabbit when both were civilized animals, walking upright, wearing clothing, dwelling in houses, both single fathers trying to raise their children to the best of their abilities. But some animal instincts lie too near the surface. Rabbit, though he tried to bury it, carried an insatiable fear of wolves, yet his house was connected to Wolf’s, whose pressure to aspire to all things wolf-like often led him salivating on Rabbit’s heels on another futile chase.
The pressure on Wolf, more often than not, came in the form of Fox. Fox was a despotic adherent of the carnivore diet, and though he was the dressiest animal in the neighborhood, he spoke with a forked tongue that was always drooling for fresh meat. Even now as he and Wolf entered into Wolf’s abode, his cunning but craven little mind was reeling with some (ironically) hare-brained scheme to catch Rabbit.
“All I’m saying,” said Fox in his acidic, wispy English drawl, “is a bit of tech goes a long way. Believe me, I abhor eschewing tradition as much as the next canine, but we must bridge the gap to Rabbit’s aptitude before he’s dust and bones.”
Wolf may not have been as readily ingenious as Fox, but the collective bumps on the noggin from all their mishaps and misfires were beginning to allow much-needed room for his brain to breathe. He spoke with a chest-rumbling Canadian growl. “And I say the more elaborate our plans become, the more likely they become to backfire.”
Fox scoffed, setting down the one small bag of Wolf’s groceries he deigned to carry into the kitchen.
Wolf set down both heavy bags of groceries he held in each arm. “Besides, I don’t think you’ve thought this plan of attaching rockets onto roller skates through. You say it’ll make me go fast enough to catch up to Rabbit, but how am I meant to turn? The woods aren’t exactly flat and straight, you know.”
“Relax. How bad could it be?” Fox tried to allay Wolf’s reservations by massaging his shoulders through the dark leather jacket the latter always wore. “It’s not that complicated. You just sort of lean your weight in the direction you want to go. Do you have a pair of roller skates?”
“No, I don’t. Simon and Barry were begging me for a couple pairs the other day, and you know how much they cost? Forty-five pounds. Each.”
Fox clicked his tongue at the mention of Wolf’s sons and stopped rubbing his shoulders.
Wolf continued. “That was in their size. And how many rockets are we going to need to practice with until we can take down Rabbit flawlessly? By the time we sink our teeth into cooked bunny flesh, I’ll be cleaned out.”
“Oh, that’s just a sunken cost fallacy.”
“How is throwing good money after bad a fallacy?”
“You told me the Canadian Brotherhood of Wolves, or whatever they call themselves, pay you to stay out of Canada. It’s not like you’ve redecorated in here since, well, I’m guessing before you even moved in.”
“Forget it, Fox. That money is to keep my pack fed. They’re growing boys. I may not be the best wolf, not bringing them fresh meat off the bone every night, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let them go hungry.”
“Why don’t you just do what my mother did and toss them out in the cold until they catch their own supper?”
Wolf snarled at the mere suggestion. “Listen, Fox.” His voice was a dangerous growl now, one that could shake an animal’s skeleton. He spoke very slowly to make his point clear. “A wolf’s pack is very important to him. It is a lifelong bond that cannot be broken!”
Fox shrunk, but still found some snark to deflect with. “So you’re saying it’s a touchy issue.”
Wolf just shook his head.
*
Rabbit’s daughter, Lucy, had dressed herself in her Forest Brigade uniform. “I’m going out, Dad!” she announced.
Her father, tending to her infant siblings, Peter and Emily, called to her. “Make sure you don’t talk to those filthy, smelly, bloodthirsty wolves from next door, sweetie!”
“Yeah, right, Dad!” Lucy slammed the door. In just a few minutes, she caught up with Simon and Barry who were window shopping in the village square.
Simon and Barry were, in a word, harmless. Both around Lucy’s age, neither had the inclination to hunt anything, except a frozen pizza. Simon was dressed in a knit cap with a Canadian maple leaf on the front and a red-orange puffer jacket. Barry was dressed in a red and white shirt with the number 52 on it. Both might have had the collective intellect of especially uneducated pond weed, but Lucy found them relatable, all-around good friends. They’d both inherited the blue tint of their father’s fur, though in a more desaturated hue. Lucy was a yellow rabbit, inheriting her mother’s freckles, but their differences never bothered them as much as it did their parents.
As Lucy approached, Simon and Barry were already engrossed in a typically riveting conversation.
“A tornado could totally beat up a tsunami!” Barry was telling his older brother in his shrill, nasally voice.
“Nuh-uh,” said Simon in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. “A tsunami is way more destructive.”
“A tornado would just rip a tsunami right out of the ocean and add it to its own power and become a hurricane!”
Simon raised his voice. “That’s not adding to its own power! That’s just helping to disperse the tsunami’s damage potential!”
“A tsunami can only hit the coastline! A tornado can go anywhere it wants!”
“A tornado’s just wind! It needs to blow stuff around to actually be dangerous!”
The brothers started slapping each other around.
“Guys,” said Lucy. “Guys!”
“Oh, hi, Lucy!” said Barry as he and his brother continued their mutual hitting.
“Lucy, tell Barry that a tsunami can beat up a tornado,” said Simon.
“Lucy, tell Simon that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and a tornado would punch a tsunami to the moon,” said Barry.
Lucy stared at her friends in silence for a good five seconds at most, then quietly said, “A volcano could defeat a tornado or a tsunami.”
Simon and Barry gasped, awestruck at this paradigm shift. “So what are you up to today, Lucy?” Simon asked as the trio walked along the lane.
“I’m on my way to Forest Brigade. Hence the uniform?” Some of her father’s sarcasm was slipping through. “I’m working to earn my fire safety badge. You remember last heat wave? According to the weather bureau, it wasn’t just a drought; it was a huge risk of a forest fire. Which is a big problem for the creatures living in the Woodland. Remember how dry it got, and just imagine the flames leaping from tree to tree, then catching on your house, and your house is burning down around you, and you’re trapped within, screaming until the smoke inhalation passes you out, and then it’s curtains. What is the matter with you two?”
Simon and Barry were hugging each other, trembling like leaves in a hurricane. “You’re scaring us,” said Barry.
“Yeah, you’re scaring Barry,” said Simon. Barry shot his older brother a look.
“You should be scared. When something’s important, you need to be terrified to understand the gravity of the situation,” Lucy opined.
“You don’t look terrified,” Simon said.
“Because I am armed with knowledge. The enlightened rabbit fears death not, for in her, death has no place to enter!"
Simon and Barry stood there, stunned, as Lucy walked off in the direction of the village hall. Barry asked, “’Armed with knowledge’? What does that even mean?”
“Pretty sure books are flammable,” said Simon.
But as they walked past the toy store as they so often did, they thought they had found the solution to their problems, as they so often did. It was red and white. It had a working siren. It had a working ladder. It had a working hose. It could drive. It cost fifteen hundred pounds. It was a “toy” firetruck that a child could drive and other children could hang onto and operate. Both Simon and Barry let out awed reverence as they basked in its aura.
“This is perfect!” Simon said. “We won’t need the Forest Brigade to save us if we have this baby!”
“We’re going to have to whine pretty hard to get Dad to buy this for us,” said Barry.
“Let’s take a page out of Lucy’s book. Anything important should strike fear into the hearts of others.”
“Yeah! If Lucy can have a tank, why can’t we have this? Let’s scare Dad!”
*
Rabbit was visited by his good friend, Terrapin, as he was just about every day. Rabbit reclined on his easy chair, staring up at the ceiling, while Terrapin attempted to feed Rabbit’s twin toddlers, Peter and Emily.
Terrapin offered a large spoonful of pulped cabbage. “Num-nums. Here come the num-nums.”
Emily tugged the spoon with a finger and catapulted the mush clear over Terrapin’s head, all the way onto her father’s forehead. Both twins exchanged a devilish giggle.
“Well done!” Rabbit said through gritted teeth. He grabbed a rag out of the sink and began to wash his fur. “Quite the arm you’ve got there, sport!”
“Now now, mustn’t waste food. Your father and I worked hard to provide these cabbages for you,” said Terrapin.
“Yes,” said Rabbit. “You don’t think they just walk themselves over here from Bear’s garden, do you?”
“You’re not planning another raid today, are you?” Terrapin said, hopefully.
Rabbit waved a bored arm. “No, we’re surplus of cabbages this week and the next.”
Terrapin gave up trying to feed the twins and left the bowl and spoons in their playpen. “You’ve certainly been more avaricious as of late.”
“I’m on top of the world, Terrapin. We’ve perfected avoiding Bear. Fox and Wolf’s schemes get stupider every week. I thought I was afraid of wolves, until I realized how bumbling and slow he is.”
“Pride comes before a fall, you know.”
“You know your problem, Terrapin? You lack confidence. If you just had some of that right stuff, you needn’t fear Wolf or Fox ever again.”
There came a knock on the door, so Rabbit went to answer it. When he saw who was at the door, his eyes went wide with shock, his tail became petrified, and he started quaking with fear.
A woman’s husky voice asked, “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you know where the Wolf residence is?”
Struggling to point his trembling finger, Rabbit squeaked out, “Next door down.”
“Thank you.”
And Rabbit shut the door.
*
Fox left Wolf’s house, muttering to himself under his breath. “So now my plans suddenly aren’t good enough for him? When did that happen? Keep cool, Fox. You’re not losing your touch. He is.”
He left Wolf’s yard and strolled down the path a few yards. He happened to look back nd see who was walking from Rabbit’s yard into Wolf’s. “Well, there goes the neighborhood.”
*
This time, the doorbell rang at Wolf’s house. “Now who could that be? Barry and Simon would just barge in.” He got up from the couch, setting down the paper on the cushion. “Fox, I already told you, I’m not investing any money in your zany antics.”
But it wasn’t Fox at the door. It was a wolf. A woman he hadn’t seen for a very long time.
His ex-wife.