CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A CRUMBLE RUMBLE

I quickly told Juliet my plan. It was pretty simple, but it would require the help of the mutant bunnies we’d left behind in the trees outside the mall. After I explained it, we climbed out of the air duct, and Juliet took off down the long storage hallway to find a way outside.

“Cod speed,” I whispered.

Juliet would take care of her part. Now I just needed to get into position. On tiptoes, I slipped out of the storage area and back into the mall. Just before it inched shut, I propped the storage door open with a trash can to make sure I could escape to the hallway again quickly if I needed to. I kept myself low to the ground and scurried from storefront to storefront. I paused in the shadowy entrance of a store called Nuts about Fiber.

My three hearts were beating like crazy.

Hiding by the fiber store, I saw that all the tables and chairs in the food court had been pushed away from the fountain. The mutant bunnies were no longer hopping around and disorganized. They were all lined up in rows. The red-shirted staffers were holding long metal pinchers—the kind that I’d seen my dad use to get things off high shelves. A staffer reached out and snapped the pinchers at a nervous-looking bunny to keep it in line.

Quietly, I tiptoed over to the entrance of an exercise store called Fitness Bliss.

“This mall has the worst stores,” I whispered to myself.

I moved behind a tall potted fern. From where I was, I could see everything perfectly. Mayor Lapin was at the front of the bunny lines with a couple of his men. Seeing him standing there, all tan and smiley, made me sick. But, as disgusted as I was, I was even more upset by what I saw to the side of him. Just to the left of the fountain was a cage containing both Zeke Bunny and Rain Bunny.

My ink boiled!

Mayor Lapin began to address the neat lines of hostage bunnies.

“Listen up,” he ordered. “We have all the necessary paperwork here. I know it’s not easy for a bunny to hold a pen, so we will assist you. I don’t want any excuses. You are simply mutated humans; you still know how to sign your names. So, sign away your land and your homes, and your lives can return to normal.”

I knew I needed to buy some time so that Juliet could get back. I didn’t think she’d make it before any of the locals gave up their homes.

“Get them signing,” the mayor commanded his men. “I want these deals locked up now.”

The rabbits shook and squeaked in distress. The staff members cooed and said, “Aww.”

“Knock it off!” the mayor yelled. “Don’t look at them.”

Two men tried to make the first bunnies in line sign the papers, but the rabbits refused.

“They’re not doing it, mayor.”

“Do I have to do everything myself?” Mayor Lapin stormed over to Uncle Zeke’s cage and opened it up. He pulled my uncle out and held him, dangling by his back legs. My uncle squeaked twice, and the staff members had to look away for fear of being overwhelmed by cuteness.

“Okay, bunny-people. See this rabbit?” the mayor seethed. “Well, if you don’t do as I say, I will take you one by one and hold you in the water until you are no longer as cute. Or breathing.”

A large orange rabbit at the front of the line started to sign.

“Actually,” the mayor said, “maybe I’ll just drown this rabbit anyway.”

Mayor Lapin held my uncle over the fountain and began to lower his adorable head toward the water.

“Hurry up, Juliet,” I whispered, beginning to sweat.

The mayor lowered Zeke even farther.

I reached into my pocket and slipped on my mask.

Zeke was getting close to the water now.

I couldn’t wait a second longer. I jumped from behind the fern and walked directly toward the crowd.

“Stop!” I shouted. I held one hand straight up in the air, imagining tentacles waving powerfully around me.

All heads, eyes, and ears turned toward me. For a second it was quiet. Even the rabbits paid attention.

“Stop what you’re doing!” I said again, loudly.

The mayor smiled, his one crooked tooth peeking out from his lips.

“Perry? You just can’t stay away. Such a harmless fool.”

Cephalopods hate to be called harmless.

“Let go of my uncle!” I ordered.

“Oh,” the mayor smiled. “This is Zeke. Perfect. I never liked Zeke.”

He continued to lower him until Zeke’s nose grazed the surface of the water.

“Wait!” I yelled. “What if I give myself up, and you let him go instead?”

“You’re hardly in a position to make deals. But I’m feeling kindhearted. I might let your uncle go if you take a sip of some superconcentrated carrot juice and become a bunny, too.”

“You mean you want me to drink some juice?” I asked nervously.

“Yes. Become a rabbit and your uncle lives.”

I gazed at my uncle as he dangled.

“How about this,” I reasoned. “No juice, but you can tie me up?”

“No deal,” the mayor said.

“Okay, what if I do a juice fast? I promise not to drink any juice for the rest of my life, and then you don’t hurt them.”

The mayor reached into his sports coat and pulled out a small vial of something that was so purple it was almost black.

I gulped and began to feel faint.

“This is superconcentrated Purple Pow carrot juice. One taste and you’ve saved your uncle. Say no, and he takes a deadly swim.”

I looked at Rain in the cage. I don’t mean to be rude, but would it have killed him to break out of his cage right then and stop the mayor from making me take a drink?

“Time’s ticking,” the mayor said impatiently. “It’s now or never.”

“And you promise that if I drink it you won’t hurt him?” I said, still trying to buy some more time for Juliet to arrive.

“I promise,” Mayor Lapin said.

I walked slowly toward the fountain.

I could feel the crowd holding their collective cute breath and watching my every move. I stopped a couple of feet from the mayor, and he reached out and offered me the juice.

I knew there was an antidote on the way, but I still wasn’t thrilled about drinking concentrated carrot juice or becoming a rabbit.

“Take a drink.”

I lifted the bottle toward my mouth slowly. The smell of egg filled my nostrils, and my throat began to constrict. I felt nauseous, but I had no other choice.

“Tell me again about your plan?” I tried.

“Stop stalling,” he ordered. “Drink!”

“Hold your sea horses.”

I put the bottle to my lips and took a swig. My eyes went wide, and the hair on the back of my neck and tentacles stood up. Rain was right—it tasted like supercheesy pizza, nachos, and doughnuts mixed together. Maybe I had vegetables all wrong.

I quickly took another drink.

“Wow,” Mayor Lapin said, bothered. “Don’t drink so much. That stuff is strong. Two drops can instantly . . .”

My head grew light, and my vision went gray. I felt my body rocking back and forth, and then, like an elevator dropping, I fell straight to the floor. I shook my head and felt my long ears swinging back and forth. My nose twitched, and my teeth grew while making a sort of creaking noise. My arms and legs shook like the static on an old TV.

Pop!

I stumbled out of my clothes and onto the ground. Looking left I saw a paw—my paw! There was no doubt about it—I was bunnified.

My arms tingled and my legs thumped. I looked around, but it was difficult to see very well because my mask was still wrapped around my head.

Glancing up, I could see Mayor Lapin. He was reaching down toward me! I shook the mask from my head to see better, but it came off a little too late. The mayor grabbed my furry torso and picked me up. He lifted me in front of his face, so close I could have touched his long, crooked tooth, and looked directly into my eyes.

“I must admit, Perry, you are much more appealing in rabbit form.”

I twitched my nose and wriggled my whiskers.

“I also must admit that I don’t feel like keeping my word today. Let’s finish you off. Maybe I’ll make a nice furry hat out of you and a pair of gloves out of your uncle.”

This was not the way I thought I would die. I always thought I would go out in a blaze of glory, fighting crime in the Galapagos Galaxy with Admiral Uli. Instead, I was going to become some sort of fuzzy hat. My life flashed before my eyes. Thanks to my time on Bunny Island, it was finally starting to look like the adventures I’d always read about. Things were just getting good for me. I couldn’t let it end now.

As the mayor held me up, I twisted my head to the left and sunk my teeth into his tan hand.

I bit down like a shark chomping on eel jerky.

Mayor Lapin’s dark eyes bulged, and he screamed in pain, dropping me. I felt the wind rush out of my lungs as I hit the floor. I stood on my hind legs and tried to shake off the dizziness clouding my brain.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw the mayor still clutching his injured hand and yelling. After shouting a few words that no squid cadet would ever repeat, he screamed,

“Get that rabbit!”

Being so low to the ground, it was hard for me to see clearly. I noticed flashes of red T-shirts to my left and right, and I knew that his staffers were near. I scrambled over piles of clothes as one of the red shirts dove for me and missed by an inch. I knew where I needed to go. I only hoped Juliet had things in place.

I scrambled to the right, zigged left, and then full-on sprint-hopped as fast as I could toward the propped-open metal door. I scampered through it and up onto the boxes. I could hear at least two men behind me.

I hopped into the air duct.

The men reached into the vent. I pawed and jumped my way up a slanted section of the vent that took me even higher.

One of the big men had squeezed through the opening and was trying to pull himself in to get at me.

“Stay there, you dumb bunny!” he hissed.

I scrambled higher.

I moved up into a larger air duct that ran horizontally. After a few hops, the metal tunnel opened into a cavernous space above the ceiling of the food court. Air ducts ran in all directions, and I was now sitting on a vent directly above the angel bunny fountain.

The light coming through the slats of the vent cover allowed me to see my reflection on the glossy side of the air duct. I blinked my big blue eyes and tossed my long brown fur. I hate to say it, but I was adorable. If all of this went wrong and I had to spend the rest of my life as a rabbit, I’d probably have a ton of admirers.

Peering down through the slats, I could see the whole food court. Mayor Lapin had wrapped the hand that I had bitten and was forcing pens into all the mutant bunnies’ paws.

“You will sign, or you will be sorry,” he shouted.

We had failed. I was worried about Juliet, but I was just as worried about my uncle and Rain and Flower and the other Bunny Islanders that were now being forced to give up everything they had.

I couldn’t think of anything else to try or any comic that might help me. Admiral Uli had never been turned into a handsome rabbit before. The closest he had ever been to my situation was when Figgy Newton had turned his water heater’s dial up to boiling, so that when Uli went to take a bath the water was way too hot. Sure, all he had to do was turn off the faucet, but for a moment he had been in hot water.

Now I was in some hot water of my own.

Just then, something to my right squeaked at me. When I turned to see what it was, I saw all the lost bunnies sitting in the vent and looking at me. Each one had a bag of chips in its mouth—all my favorite brands. Juliet had come through beautifully.

I raised my right paw and said, “Weerrt, weeert, berp berp?”

Even I didn’t understand the bunny gibberish I was saying. I think I was attempting to say, “What are you waiting for? Let’s do this.”

“Weerrt, weeert, berp berp?” I tried again.

I hopped up, squealing and waving at the others, and pointed toward the big central vent on which I was standing. Like an army of well-trained stuffed animals, the bunnies all began moving toward the vent and tearing at their chip bags.

I turned to the lost bunnies and yelled, “Errrreeet!”

We all pounded our legs and kicked up a cloud of pure salt, additives, oil, and sugar. The cloud dropped through the vent like junk food rain. Some lost bunnies, stationed by other air vents, released their own bags of chips, and in a few seconds the entire food court looked like it was in the middle of a salty sandstorm. The rabbits below wasted no time munching at the air and getting a taste of the antidote. The falling chips filled the fountain, and immediately, there were splashes of yellow chip water flying everywhere.

“What’s happening?!” I heard the mayor yelling from beneath me.

I kept stomping.

The pounding of paws on chips was so loud, I considered trying to plug my ears. But I didn’t want to miss a second of what was happening below. The food court was alive with the noise of popping and hissing, as every mutant bunny began to change back into their human forms. There was also an excessive amount of belching and gasping and slipping and falling. On top of the wet antidote, there seemed to be a thick layer of gross goo coating the floor in the areas where bunnies were turning into people.

“Stop this!” the mayor screamed.

As he screeched, more and more bunnies returned to their former selves. People began yelling and hollering at him. Some smart-thinking folks grabbed a bunch of towels from a store called Bubba’s Big Towels and threw them into the crowd. Mayor Lapin took one look at the angry gathering, flipped his slicked-back hair, and cried, “Retreat!”

The entire Bunny Island Remodeling Project committee slipped and stumbled as they fought to run away. After some awkward falls and a few hits and kicks from the crowd, they took off, splashing through the yellow chip water with towel-clad locals chasing after them.

The food court exploded with shouts of happiness and relief as the final stragglers returned to their previous shapes. Through the vent, everything looked like a yellow mess or the aftermath of a newt-nado. It was probably good that everyone was covered in wet chip pulp and big towels because everybunny—I mean everybody—still needed to find their clothes.

I stopped crushing chips and raced back through the air ducts and climbed down the boxes. I then joined the crowd near the fountain and happily lapped up bits of chips that had mixed with the water and created a pool of antidote.

It was the tastiest transformation of my life.