“What are those two funny marks on your neck?”
Chester jumped and I laughed. “Very funny,” he said as he began to bathe his tail, “very funny.”
The Monroes never knew anything of Chester’s theory. They changed markets and to this day believe they were the victims of a curious vegetable blight.
Bunnicula and I have become good friends. He still doesn’t say anything, but he snuggles up next to me by the fireplace and we take long cozy snoozes together. One night, I sang him a lullaby in the obscure dialect of his homeland, and he slept very peacefully. It was that night that cemented our friendship.
Now—about Chester. I said that everything was back to normal—almost. Naturally, Chester is the “almost.” He has been seeing his psychiatrist, Dr. Verrückt Katz, twice a week for some time now. He takes his therapy very seriously.
The other morning, I was trying to get a little sleep, when Chester came over and nudged me in the ribs.
“Harold, do you realize we’ve never really communicated? I mean really communicated?”
I opened one eye cautiously.
“And in order to communicate, Harold, you have to really be in touch with yourself. Are you in touch with yourself, Harold? Can you look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I know who I am. I am in touch with the me-ness that is me, and I can reach out to the you-ness that is you’?”
I closed my eye. I’m used to it by now. He talks like that all the time. He no longer reads Edgar Allan Poe at night. And once he concluded that he had been right about Bunnicula, there has been no more talk about vampires. The Mark of the Vampire sits, its usefulness obsolete, on its shelf. Right now, he’s reading Finding Yourself by Screaming a Lot, and the other night, when I heard the most awful noise coming from the basement, I didn’t even bat an eyelid. I knew it was just Chester “finding himself,” as he calls it. He explains to me that he’s getting in touch with his kittenhood. And I’ve told him that’s fine—just to let me know when he’s going to do it, so I can be elsewhere. I’ve had enough trouble from Chester’s adventures.
So that’s my story. And the story of a mysterious stranger who no longer seems quite so mysterious and who is definitely no longer a stranger. I’ve presented the facts as clearly as I could, and I leave it to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions. I must now bring this narrative to a close, since it is Friday night—Toby’s night to stay up late and read—and I can hear the crinkling of cellophane. I can only hope it covers two chocolate cupcakes with cream filling.
Publication Info
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 1979 by James Howe
Illustrations copyright © 1979 by Alan Daniel
Preface copyright © 2004 by James Howe
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Book design by Anne Scatto / Pixel Press
The text of this book is set in Stemple Garamond.
The illustrations are rendered in pen and ink.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Revised format edition, 2004
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Howe, Deborah.
Bunnicula: a rabbit-tale of mystery / by Deborah and James Howe;
illustrated by Alan Daniel.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Though scoffed at by Harold the dog, Chester the cat tries to warn his human family that their foundling baby bunny must be a vampire.
ISBN 0-689-30700-4
[1. Rabbits—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Howe, James, 1946— . II. Daniel, Alan, 1939— . III. Title.
PZ7.H836Bu 1979
[Fic]—dc80 78-11472
ISBN 0-689-86775-1
Version Info:
Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery (25th Anniversary Edition), Bunnicula Book 1 by Deborah and James Howe
1.0 - scanned and proofread 2008-05-10
Never feed chocolate to dogs, it is poisonous to them.