"Lizzie! Lizzieee!" The sound of Eliza's older sister yelling echoed from down the hall. Eliza ignored her, annoyed to be called by her kit name. Lizzie was a name for babies and Eliza was eight now. Far too old to be called a baby name. She continued playing with her dolls who, at the moment, were having a very important tea party. Light thudding footsteps grew louder until they stopped at the doorway to the bedroom. The room, usually loud and full of Eliza's siblings, had twelve kit-sized beds and was deserted except for her and her sister. Eliza looked up at Emma who was rudely interrupting her alone time. It wasn't everyday that all of her siblings would be out of the way for such a long period of time and Eliza wanted to savor every moment of having the beautiful dolls all to herself. She wished she had hidden the dolls so that Emma wouldn't make her share, but it was too late now.
"What is it, Em?" Eliza groaned dramatically.
Emma hopped in place, her ears standing straight up as she spoke. "Everyone's looking for you. Aunt Judy is here!" Eliza stared blankly. They had hundreds of aunts and uncles and she didn't understand why everyone was downstairs just to see one Bunny.
"So?" She shrugged and continued filling the teacups with imaginary tea.
"The one who got married to a Fox!" Emma's eyes were wide with excitement and she smiled as if what she said held the magic words to make Eliza race downstairs.
Eliza sighed. "So?" She didn't care if Bunny Claus himself were downstairs. She wouldn't give up this isolation for anything.
"Well don't you wanna see their little kits, Lily and Noah? One of them has really cool eyes! It's like purple but it has green in the middle and-"
"Wait. They have little kits?" This peaked Eliza's interest. Little kits were like dolls, but alive! She loved playing with them and her mom stopped having them awhile ago so the only time she saw any were when other relatives would visit.
"Yeah! Come on!" Eliza hurriedly followed behind her older sister hoping there were at least eight kits so that she would get a turn to hold one. Downstairs, her forty-seven siblings were crowded into the large family room. Every chair and couch was taken up and a chorus of aw's and coos came from the front of the room where most of her siblings were grouped. Next to the large group of her siblings stood a red-orange Fox eating blueberries. She'd seen Foxes before at school but none had ever been in her house. He towered above everyone and had startlingly green eyes. The emerald eyes glanced her way and the Fox's mouth opened to a sharp-toothed smile. Eliza looked away, feeling uneasy about the unfamiliar mammal whose name she didn't know.
"There you are, Lizzie," remarked the voice of Eliza's father. Eliza crossed her arms ready to tell him not to call her a baby name anymore, but then she got a glimpse of the kits past her older siblings. She raced over, hopping with every other step, and tried to push past some of her brothers.
"Wait your turn, Lizzie!" Eddie said after she attempted to shove him out of the way. Eliza huffed, staring at her siblings' backs, and wishing she could see the new kits. She was one of the youngest in her family and was always last to everything. Suddenly she rose into the air in what she thought was magic, but turned out to be her dad lifting her up. She grinned and looked back at him.
"Thanks, Daddy." She shone her toothy grin.
"No problem, Lizzie," he responded warmly. Eliza stopped smiling and fought the urge to roll her eyes at the kit name, deciding to focus her attention onto the center of the circle.
"Ugh. There's only two!?" Eliza exclaimed looking at the kits. One was a brown color and one had the same orange fur as the Fox. Eliza groaned. Now she would never get a turn to hold the funny looking kits. The world flew upward as Eliza's dad quickly brought her to the ground. She was about to object but her father spoke first.
"Don't say things like that, Lizzie. I think your Aunt Judy overheard you," her father warned in a hushed tone. The excited buzz of the room made it so that only Eliza could hear his words. Her eyebrows pulled together and she turned to see her Aunt Judy rushing out of the room, and the bright orange Fox following after her.
"So?" Eliza didn't understand what she could have said wrong. Her words didn't seem mean when she had said them.
Her dad cocked his head. "Ah. You weren't down here when your mom and I explained what happened a month ago when the kits were born. You know how there are two little kits here?" Eliza nodded slowly. "Well there was a third one and he, uh, went to sleep but didn't wake up."
Eliza rolled her eyes. "I know what dying is, Dad. You don't have to-" She stopped talking and realized how her words made Aunt Judy sad.
Her dad's eyes narrowed. "Young lady, cut the attitude or it's timeout." Eliza eagerly apologized. She would do anything to stay out of timeout. It was complete boredom for ten whole minutes! "Don't apologize to me," her dad said, looking towards the direction Aunt Judy went.
"Oh," Eliza said, understanding. She walked cautiously towards the room Aunt Judy went into, having to sidestep the siblings that got in her way. Once she turned the corner into the dining room, she saw her aunt and the Fox hugging each other. The situation looked too private and she wasn't sure how to approach. She heard the Fox saying words but they were too quiet for Eliza to understand. She looked back at the family room down the hall and then to the staircase beside her. There were too many waiting to hold the kits and Eliza knew there was no chance that she'd get a turn. She quietly climbed the stairs, deciding she'd just play with her dolls again.
After twenty minutes or so, Eliza heard someone coming up the stairs. After having the room to herself for so long, Eliza was beginning to feel bored and she hoped it was one of her sisters coming to play with her. "Lizzie?" a woman's voice asked.
"In here," Eliza replied, recognizing her Aunt Judy's voice. When the adult Bunny steps in the room Eliza gasps and hopps up and down. "You brought the kit!" In Judy's arms was the brown kit Eliza had seen earlier in the family room.
"Yes I did. I just finished feeding her in the other room and we thought we'd stop by." Judy sat on one of the beds for younger Bunnies and sighed. "And I wanted to get away from all the chaos. I guess you had the same idea, huh?"
Eliza nods, still looking at the tiny furball. "Can I see him up close?"
"Oh, this one is Lily. She's female but, sure you can see her." Eliza rushed over to the kit and stared. Lily was cute and stared right back at Eliza, wide eyed and curious. Eliza thought Lily's fur had been brown but it was really more of a dulled reddish orange. Certain parts were tinted golden where the sunlight shined in from the window. It looked pretty cool since she'd never seen fur of that exact shade. Eliza got really close to Lily's small face and stared at her strange violet eyes with their small circles of green around the pupils. She had never seen eyes with two starkly different colors in them and it fascinated her. "How'd you make her eyes look like that?"
"Well she just came that way." Judy giggled.
"I wonder how though." Eliza now wished her eyes could look cool like that.
"I guess we'll just ask the Kit store how they made her." Judy said, referencing the answer that Eliza's parents always gave to where kits come from. Eliza felt the soft fur between Lily's ears and then lifted up a tiny paw to compare it's size to hers.
"Kits don't come from the store, Silly." Eliza shook her head wondering how her aunt didn't know. "They come from sex."
Aunt Judy's eyebrows shot right up to the top of her head. An "Oh?" was all she replied with.
Eliza sighed, disappointed that her aunt was so clueless. In truth, Eliza hadn't figured this out until a week earlier when she'd overheard her older brothers talking about it. Then, she'd looked up the rest in the dictionary, but she wouldn't tell her Aunt Judy that. She liked the idea of being seen as super smart so her older siblings and everyone else would stop treating her like a baby. "Yeah, Aunt Judy. That's how we're all here existing right now. Everyone used to be a kit and we just grew up."
"Well not everyone was a kit. There are different names for certain species. Like how Wolves are born as pups." Eliza felt her cheeks grow hot from being corrected.
"I knew that already," Eliza replied. She hadn't, but Aunt Judy didn't have to know that. Eliza went back to playing with Lily when a question came to mind. "What did the other kit look like?" Eliza imagined the possibilities as she waited for a reply. After a moment of silence, Eliza looked up at her aunt who smiled sadly down at Lily.
"Oh. He was light grey and very soft and fluffy," Judy said in a quiet voice.
"Like a raincloud?" Eliza could picture it clearly now.
"Sure. Like a raincloud," she said, stroking the fur between Lily's tiny head.
"What was his name?" Judy gave her the look older mammals had when Eliza asked too many questions.
"Myles."
Eliza gasped. "Oh! I get it. Like the alphabet?"
"What?" Judy asked, confused.
"Lily is L, Myles is M, and Noah is N. It's the part that goes L, M, N, O, P."
Aunt Judy smiled for real now and nodded. Both Bunnies looked up when small tapping sounds came from the doorway. It was the Fox and he was as almost as tall as the ceiling up here! She couldn't wait to tell her friends at school that her uncle was a Fox. She realized she was missing one detail, though.
"Hello. I'm Eliza. What's your name?" She asked the Fox, recalling the polite way to introduce herself.
The Fox knelt down in front of Eliza, shook her paw, and talked to her like she was a grown up. "Hi Eliza. I'm Nick. Mind if I steal your Aunt Judy from you?" Eliza smiled brightly at finally being called her big kit name. She wasn't ready to say bye but she was content in knowing that she got more alone time with Lily than all of her other siblings.
"I guess I don't mind."
"Ready to go, Carrots?" Nick asked and, with Judy's nod, they all left the room.
Eliza, and the rest of her family, followed them outside. After taking about twenty pictures with different groups of the family, her aunt and uncle seemed ready to go. Eliza's mom and Aunt Judy were laughing about something and Uncle Nick held the two kits in either paw to their car. There was a slight mist in the air, signalling that it would start raining soon. She looked up to see a greyish blue sky with clouds strewn across it. One cloud, in particular stood out. "Aunt Judy!" Eliza bellowed out. Judy turned to look at Eliza who pointed up at the sky. Past her finger was a grey cloud shaped like a Bunny head with slightly pointed ears. "It's Myles!" Judy searched the sky and paused when she saw the cloud.
"Elizabeth Jane Hopps. Go to timeout," Eliza's father's strong voice ordered.
Judy interrupted, still staring at the sky. "No, no it's fine. It's one of our inside jokes." Then, turning to Eliza, she gave one last smile and got into the car.
A chorus of byes and chatter filled the front yard as the car pulled off and drove away. Eliza looked up at the sky again, but couldn't find the cloud. A droplet of water plopped right onto her nose, making her notice the light rain falling around her. Eliza ran back towards the house. "Dibs on the dollhouse!" She yelled, causing some of her sisters to race after her.