“I’m sorry,” said Whetū, after a short pause. “I thought you were mice.”
The rabbit gave a disgusted snort. “Mice? I am a rabbit, you silly girl. Behold my magnificent feet, my glorious tail, my sweeping ears! I am no more a mouse than I am a goldfish.”
“I can see that now.”
Whetū didn’t much like the way he spoke to her. He was a very handsome rabbit, and his fur was groomed and gleamed white, but his teeth were too sharp in front and his eyes were a strangely faded shade of pink.
“Welcome to the cottage!” said the rabbit, inclining his head graciously. “My name is Errant.”
“My name is Whetū Toa,” Whetū said. “And my mother is The Mighty Mikaere’s new personal assistant.”
“I know that,” said Errant. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Is your mother any good?”
Whetū’s voice grew stern. “My mother is the best ever.”
“I don’t mean as a mother, I mean as an assistant. There’s more to being an assistant than just standing to one side looking beautiful.” The rabbit preened himself with a smug expression.
“Oh! Are you an assistant too, then?”
“I’m the magician’s stage assistant. It’s a very important job. Why, he wouldn’t get paid half so much if I wasn’t there to help him!”
“What do you do, exactly?” said Whetū, getting interested. She’d never met a stage assistant before. But then again, she’d never met a talking rabbit or a quacking doormat before, either.
“What do I do? For starters, I allow myself to be pulled out of top hats. And believe me, that’s not an easy job. One has to perform feats of extraordinary acrobatic athleticism to even get into the thing in the first place! It’s certainly not a job for someone who’s claustrophobic.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Whetū, who had no idea what claustrophobic meant but wasn’t about to tell the rabbit that. “What else do you do?”
“I engage with the audience,” Errant said impressively.
There was a short silence.
“What does that mean?” said Whetū.
Errant sighed. “Don’t you know anything?”
“Of course I do!” said Whetū indignantly. “I know adding and spelling and writing and … I can even skate backwards. I just don’t know much about magicians or magicians’ assistants. They’re not very common where I come from.”
She waited for him to ask where she came from, but he didn’t.
“Oh, very well,” Errant said in a bored voice. “I suppose we can’t all be blessed with stage experience.”
He thumped one of his hind legs on the bed. A cloud of dust rose up. He sneezed and leapt onto the floor.
“You’d better clean up this mess. And then I’ll take you on a tour of the farm and introduce you to everybody else.”
“Who’s everybody?” said Whetū, but the rabbit had already vanished around the open door. Whetū went after him. “Who’s everybody?” she repeated, but the hallway was empty.