The Babysitter

MR RABBIT AND MR WOLF - THE BABYSITTER


It was a wonderful day. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was going to be a good day. This is what Mr Wolf was thinking as he had breakfast.

But Mr Rabbit was not in the same good mood. He was not looking forward to the day. He was upset and was not happy at all. He hadn’t slept a wink all night thinking about this day.

Mr Rabbit’s sister had a very important meeting to go to and she had asked him to look after her children. Mr Rabbit was going to be a babysitter for the day.

He explained all this to Mr Wolf when he came over after breakfast.

‘ The children are terrible. They are out of control and do as they please. What am I going to do Mr Wolf? ‘ And Mr Rabbit looked at Mr Wolf with tears in his eyes.

‘ That should be easy Mr Rabbit,’ Mr Wolf told him. ‘Just keep them occupied. Give them things to do and they will be so busy that they will not have time to behave badly.’

After Mr Wolf had gone Mr Rabbit sat down to think about ways of keeping the children busy.

‘ Games,’ he thought to himself. ‘ I will have them play so many games that the time will fly and they will be gone before they can be naughty.’

And he wrote down a list of all the games he could think of.

At ten o’ clock the doorbell rang and when Mr Rabbit opened the door he was knocked down to the ground as ten little rabbits ran into his house.

‘ Now children,’ Mr Rabbit’s sister told the young ones. ‘ Behave yourselves and do as Uncle Chris tells you. Do you understand? I have to go now but I will be back to pick you up at six o’ clock.’

And with that she kissed Mack, Deena, Pina, Jack, Lina, Zack, Mina, Sheena, Nina and Teena goodbye.

Mr Rabbit rubbed his hands nervously and then said, ‘ Children, let us play a few games together. We are going to have lots of fun.’

He brought out cards and board games but was soon running around picking up pieces which the little rabbits were throwing at each other.

Teena was the youngest and she came up to Mr Rabbit and said, ‘ Uncle Chris, I miss my mummy. I want my mummy.’ And she started to cry.

Mr Rabbit picked her up and watched anxiously as Zack climbed up the curtains. ‘ Get down Zack.’ He pleaded. ‘ Please get down before you hurt yourself.’

Zack did come down as the curtains fell down with his weight. He was not hurt and got up and screamed around the house with his little brothers and sisters.

Mr Rabbit decided to feed them. ‘ Maybe that will keep them quiet.’ But he was wrong as Zack threw a carrot at Mack, who threw a piece of celery back at him but hit Pina instead and in a few minutes food was flying all around the kitchen.

Poor Mr Rabbit had no whiskers left because he pulled them all off one by one as he watched his nice little house changed into a big messy dump.

He took the little rabbits out into the garden to save what was left of his house but what a mistake. The naughty rabbits destroyed his garden too and soon Mr Rabbit was crying just as hard as little Teena.

At last Mr Rabbit had had enough. When Zack tried to set fire to Lina’s tail he snatched the matches away from him and shouted at him to behave.

‘You are the worst behaved rabbit I have ever seen,’ Mr Rabbit said angrily. ‘ And I am going to tell your mother about how you have behaved today.’

Zack just laughed at him and said to Jack,’ Uncle Chris is cross. He’s a criss-cross, hot cross bun……nie.’

Poor Mr Rabbit gave up. He sat down in a corner holding the still crying Teena. He didn’t know what else to do.

Suddenly the doorbell rang and there was loud knocking on the door. All the rabbits stopped what they were doing and stared at Mr Rabbit.

‘Open up in there,’ said a loud angry voice from outside. ‘I have had enough noise for one day. Open up, I say. I’m going to put a stop to your wild party.’

Mr Rabbit went to open the door and found an angry Mr Wolf outside. Mr Wolf winked at Mr Rabbit then pushed him aside as he entered the house.

‘What have we here?’ he asked as he looked at what was left of Mr Rabbit’s possessions.

The rabbits were scared as they saw an angry wolf growling at them.

“ Rabbits, rabbits, come to me
I can have you all for tea.”

Mr Wolf opened his big mouth and showed them his big teeth. ‘Now who shall I eat first,’ he said as he looked at the rabbits one by one. ‘Who’s the naughtiest I say?’

All the rabbits pushed Zack to the front and Zack started to tremble as Mr Wolf bent down to look at him. ‘I like roast rabbit,’ Mr Wolf said softly. ‘I also like rabbit stew.’

And poor Zack started to cry as he saw himself being roasted on a fire or chopped up and stewed in a pot.

Mr Rabbit jumped in. ‘You cannot do that to these nice little rabbits. They are good rabbits and mean well.’

Mr Wolf looked around the house. ’I can see that,’ he said with a sneer. ‘But I only eat naughty rabbits so let them show me how good and nice they are.’

‘Come on children. Start cleaning up this mess,’ said Mr Rabbit. ‘ Let’s show Mr Wolf what nice rabbits we are.’

All the little rabbits nodded their heads and started clearing up the mess. Soon ten rabbits were running around, dusting, washing, vacuuming, and putting away all they had left lying around. Very soon the whole house and the garden too, were spic and span and although a few things could not be repaired they did a very good job.

Mr Wolf nodded his head and said,’ I see I was very much mistaken. You are a very nice bunch of rabbits and I will have to find something else for tea!’ And with that he walked out.

The rabbits were too scared to move after this and sat quietly watching TV until their mother came to pick them up.

Imagine her surprise when she walked in and saw them all sitting there quietly.

‘ I don’t believe it,’ she exclaimed.’ How did you control the little brats? I will have to bring them here more often.’

‘ Please don’t, please don’t,’ muttered Mr Rabbit under his breath and he heaved a huge sigh of relief as he closed the door after the last one.

Before he went to bed that night, Mr Rabbit baked a huge carrot cake for Mr Wolf as a thank you for helping him with the little rabbits.

Thank you Mr Wolf.

And do you know what Mr Wolf would say?

That’s what friends are for.

It is so good to have a real friend.