Doc and Dorrie and the Mystery of the Hairless Hare
Chapter 1 – Rabbit Diving
Dorrie was pretty sure Mrs. Baumgarten was saying something important, something about the reproductive cycle of rabbits, she thought (spying Ernie Hoffman making very rude Bunny Foo Foo gestures underneath his desk). Mrs. Baumgarten was speaking very slowly and pausing every third word like she always did when she introduced material that would be on a test, but Dorrie just could not listen. She was too busy trying to figure out how to quietly wake up the cockatiel in her lunchbox.
Contrary to popular belief, cockatiels are not quiet sleepers. Dorrie’s cockatiel, Doc, had hitched a ride with her to school, hidden away in an old unicorn lunchbox with holes punched in the top so Doc could breathe easily. Dorrie had tried to convince Doc to stay home, but Doc refused. He was too excited to go over all the details of the case they had cracked the night before. Doc thought it counted as their first real case, establishing them as legitimate crime-solvers, but Dorrie wasn’t sure that finding Granny Cotton’s wallet really counted, considering she was a family member, and it was common knowledge that Granny Cotton always hid things in the Christmas box in her hall closet and then forgot about putting them there.
But Doc wanted to rehash all the excitement (and discuss how to spend the $20 reward Granny Cotton gave them), so he stashed himself away in Dorrie’s old lunchbox, now only used when necessary as a Doc transportation device. Nobody in sixth grade carried lunchboxes anymore, let alone unicorn lunchboxes – unicorns were so fourth grade, until you got into high school, and then you could carry a unicorn lunchbox again and declare yourself “retro-cool.”
Nowadays, all the cool girls, like Dorrie’s friend Joanna, bought their lunch at school. The cool lunch right now was a can of Diet Coke and a cheese quesadilla. Sometimes Dorrie could talk her mom into giving her money for a quesadilla lunch, but even then her mom insisted on giving her a bag of apple slices or carrot sticks to take along.
“A quesadilla is not a healthy lunch, no matter what Joanna Von Fang says,” her mother would say, sticking the offending baggie of fruit or veggies into the pocket of Dorrie’s backpack.
Most days, though, Dorrie’s mom refused to hand over the lunch money, citing the miniscule salary she got teaching 8th grade science at Dorrie’s school. So today, Doc had to share his lunchbox quarters with a cheese-and-salami sandwich, chunks of cantaloupe, and a few sugar cookies. Dorrie was pretty sure that by the time lunchtime came around, her sandwich and cookies would be half nibbled away. At least she could count on having the cantaloupe to herself – Doc didn’t like melon.
But for the moment, Dorrie had bigger issues on her mind than her lunch. Doc had fallen asleep inside her lunchbox and was grinding his beak in his sleep. The beak-grinding noise had started out quietly, but was getting louder and louder as it always did when Doc started dreaming. At first, Dorrie thought maybe no one would be able to hear Doc over Mrs. Baumgarten’s droning, but then Celeste Simone, who sat behind her, tapped her on the shoulder.
“Um, Dorrie, I’m afraid I can’t hear what Mrs. Baumgarten is saying because of the loud grinding noise coming from under your desk.”
“Sorry. My cordless pencil sharpener must be on the fritz.”
Dorrie whipped around and bent over, sticking her head underneath her desk and pretending to fumble with something in her backpack. The lunchbox rested nearby, with the snoozing Doc beginning to grind louder and louder.
“Pssst. Pssssst, Doc. Doc! Wake up! Wake UP!” She couldn’t just give the lunchbox a good hard knock, for fear she might startle Doc into a hissing, flapping, squawking fit. Then everyone would know that Dorrie had brought Doc to school again, and she would be sent to Principal Alcorn’s office, AGAIN, and this time – who knows? Maybe she’d be suspended. Or expelled. Her mom would be really, really mad. She’d probably even stop writing little notes on the bathroom mirror. That would be awful.
“Dooooooc. Doc! Doc! Doc!” she hissed at the lunchbox. The grinding continued. It may have even grown louder. At a loss, Dorrie sat up. Celeste tapped her on the shoulder again.
“Excuse me, but now I can’t hear because of your loud whispering underneath the desk. I might have to say something to Mrs. Baumgarten if you can’t keep quiet.”
Dorrie couldn’t help but make a nasty face at Celeste. She was such a teacher’s pet, always tattling and getting chosen to lead lines and monitor the classroom. Why couldn’t Celeste just mind her own business?
The grinding was getting louder, and stupid Celeste was probably seconds away from tattling on Dorrie and her grinding lunchbox. Dorrie couldn’t think of anything to save herself, so she did the next best thing. She wadded up a tiny piece of paper and threw it at Ben Dillard’s head.
Bull’s-eye. Ben flipped around, ready to wop somebody in the nose, but his face lightened when he saw Dorrie give him a little wave. She pointed to the lunchbox, made little flapping motions with her hands, and mouthed, “Help me!”
Ben immediately turned back to the front of the classroom and raised his hand high in the air. Mrs. Baumgarten must have hypnotized herself with her monotonous drone, because Ben had to “harrumph” a few times before she noticed his hand waving madly.
“Yes, Ben, what is it?”
“MRS. BAUMGARTEN, YES! THANK YOU FOR CALLING ON ME!”
“Good heavens, Ben, please don’t shout.”
“I’M SORRY, MRS. BAUMGARTEN. I WENT TO A CONCERT LAST NIGHT AND I GUESS MY HEARING WENT OUT A LITTLE.”
As Ben prattled on loudly, Dorrie leaned down next to her lunchbox. The grinding had stopped, replaced by a loud yawn.
“Keep it down in there, will you?” Dorrie whispered.
“Geez - sorry,” Doc answered, and Dorrie heard him fluff his feathers and click his beak, the telltale sign that he didn’t appreciate being scolded. Then she heard another yawn. Great – he’d probably be asleep again in five minutes. Why wouldn’t this class end?
Up on desk level, Mrs. Baumgarten was warning her students against attending loud concerts and still trying to get Ben to lower his voice. Ben glanced at Dorrie, who gave him a thumbs-up. As soon as Mrs. Baumgarten was done extolling the virtues of soft jazz and hot tea, Ben continued in a more normal voice.
“Uh, I think my hearing’s coming back now, Mrs. Baumgarten. Sorry about that. But I was wondering, you said something at the beginning of class about a surprise?”
“Ah, yes! Children,” she began, causing many of the kids to huff and puff – they weren’t children, “I’m very excited to announce that we are going to have a new addition to our classroom. No, not a new student. You probably don’t know, but my parents have a small farm outside of Queen Creek. I visited last weekend and when I returned, I brought somebody with me.”
Now Mrs. Baumgarten had the attention of every single person in the classroom, and Doc, too, who was listening attentively inside the lunchbox. Some of the kids were murmuring about Mrs. Baumgarten’s parents, who must be, like, 120 years old. Mrs. Baumgarten had disappeared inside the small closet behind her desk, and when she reappeared, she was struggling with a glass terrarium, in which a fat brown rabbit sat, chewing a piece of lettuce and wiggling his nose.
“I call him Quivers,” said Mrs. Baumgarten, as the whole class collectively ooohed. At the sound of his name, Quivers immediately started quivering. Dorrie was surprised that Mrs. Baumgarten had thought of such a good name – she always seemed liked the kind of lady that put doilies everywhere and collected stamps – hardly an imaginative person. In Dorrie’s opinion, bestowing names was a true art form. She had a huge collection of stuffed animals, including a dog named Tapioca and a cat named Blister. Joanna made a face whenever Dorrie pulled out “Blister,” but she couldn’t deny that the cat was, in fact, the exact color of a freshly formed blister.
Of course, she and Joanna didn’t play with stuffed animals very much anymore. When Joanna came over, Dorrie hid most of her animals in the closet, with the exception of Blister and her penguin Ritzy, who stayed on her bed. Joanna and Dorrie usually painted each other’s fingernails and flipped through magazines, ripping out pictures of models wearing the coolest-of-cool clothes. These days, when Joanna came over, Doc hung out in the kitchen with Dorrie’s mom, nibbling her school papers when she wasn’t looking. He was finding it harder and harder to keep his mouth shut around Joanna.
“Whoa, a rabbit,” said Doc. “Cool.”
“Yeah, he’s so cute! Look at him shiver like that, do you think he’s scared—HEY!” Caught up in the excitement, it took Dorrie a second to realize that it was absolutely NOT cool for Doc to be out of the lunchbox. When did he figure out how to work the latch?
“C’mon, you didn’t expect me to hang out in that prison cell with all this excitement?”
“Doc, I’m going to get in trouble!”
He was sitting in his favorite hiding spot – on her shoulder, camouflaged by her curly, shoulder-length hair. Thank goodness she hadn’t put her hair in a ponytail today.
Doc shook his head. “Oh please, no one’s going to notice me, what with fatso up there. I wonder what ol’ Baum’s been feeding him?”
“Doc, be nice. And just—shut up for a minute and try not to twitch your tail. I can’t get caught with you again.”
“All right, all right. Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, I just got bored.”
“Har har, very funny.” Doc loved making feather jokes, and it was all Dorrie could do to keep from rolling her eyes every time.
Up at the front of the classroom, Mrs. Baumgarten was trying to get the class’s attention.
“Children, quiet now, listen to me please!” she said, rapping loudly on her desk and causing Quivers to bound to the other end of his terrarium.
“You’ll be happy to know that I will need an assistant in the care of Quivers. The assistant will change Quivers’ food and water every day, as well as be able to pet him. Like children, rabbits also need affection.”
Dorrie felt Doc’s tail twitch at Mrs. Baumgarten’s cheesy line, and immediately got a tap on the opposite shoulder from Celeste.
“Excuse me, Dorrie, but I couldn’t help but notice a tail twitching in your hair.”
Dorrie thought of a lot of things she could say, but decided she’d better keep her mouth shut.
“I can’t help but think that the tail probably belongs to your bird, who you were specifically barred from bringing to school ever again.”
In the background, Mrs. Baumgarten said, “and of course, it is most, MOST important for the rabbit assistant to always remember that—“
“So I’m afraid, Dorrie, that it’s my duty as classroom monitor to report this deviation from the rules to Mrs. Baumgarten and to Principal Alcorn—“
“Celeste!” Mrs. Baumgarten’s voice interrupted Celeste’s annoying lecture. “I’m shocked that you, our classroom monitor, would choose this very important moment to indulge in idle chatter, which is clearly against classroom rules.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Baumgarten, it’s just that…”
“If you are finished, we will proceed onward with choosing a rabbit assistant. Are you finished?”
Celeste glanced over at the offending tail, which disappeared with a flick into Dorrie’s thick wavy hair. Celeste chewed her lip. “Yes, Mrs. Baumgarten.”
“Very well, then. Since we are running out of time, we will choose the rabbit assistant based on a simple trivia question. I believe in Mr. Murphy’s class, you are currently reading Watership Down. Who can tell me the names of the two brothers in this book?”
Dorrie’s hand shot up the second Mrs. Baumgarten said the word “Watership.” She read the book LAST year and cried for two nights when she finished. Doc couldn’t see why a bunch of talking rabbits were such a big deal. Sometimes Doc was a very weird talking bird. A number of other hands were up, but Dorrie’s arm was waving furiously. Doc had to dig his claws into her shoulder to hold on.
“Geez, calm down, will ya? You’re gonna get us busted.”
“Now let’s see, I believe Dorrie and Celeste had their" hands up first.”
Oh great. Now Celeste would get to be rabbit assistant AND tell on her.
“But in light of Celeste’s earlier classroom behavior deviation, I’ll have to give Dorrie the first chance to answer the question.”
“Hizer and Favel! I mean, Hazel and Fiver!” Dorrie shouted.
“Well, I believe we have our new rabbit assistant!”
Dorrie beamed as Celeste slumped behind her. Ha! That would show Celeste. She couldn’t wait to tell Joanna that she was going to be rabbit assistant – Joanna had always wanted a pet rabbit, but her parents said a cat was enough. Maybe she’d even let Joanna pet Quivers.
Now, if she could just figure out a way to keep Doc quiet and get him back into the lunchbox without anybody noticing, this could turn out to be a good day after all.
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