FOUR – AN ENORMOUS FAVOR
Jack had never rescued a baby bunny from a big brown dog before, so he wasn't very good at it, at first. He scampered through the grass, his tail straight out behind him and across the Wilder's blacktop driveway. He bounded up the stone wall that circled the flower garden in the center of the driveway then dropped down inside his hole. He never checked to see if Rue was right behind him.
Safe inside his burrow, Jack tried to slow his heartbeat with easy breaths of air. He rubbed each of his shoulders against the black, fertile dirt wall of his den then shook off and began grooming himself. "Well, that was a close call, little fellow."
Only Rue didn't answer. Rue didn't make any noise at all. Jack whipped around.
Rue wasn't there!
"Oh, no!" said Jack.
He scurried out of his burrow and onto the stone wall. Rue wasn't in the yard, but Sugar was near the picket fence, in front of a bush. She had her nose and front legs flat against the ground and her tail wagged high in the air.
"Bark, bark, bark!" she said.
Sugar had Rue trapped against the fence! It was all a big game to that rascal, that devil of a dog, chasing the little animals and scaring them to death.
There was no telling when Mrs. Wilder would call Sugar back in. There was no telling what would happen if Sugar got her mouth on Rue.
"I must think quickly," Jack said. "And act even quicker." He scratched the fur between his ears. "Think quickly. Think quickly." His entire body told him to run back inside his hole. "No, I've got to help the little bunny."
A very shiny black crow was perched in an old oak tree - Jack's old friend, Poe.
A long time ago, Jack had helped Poe get out of a very bad situation. It had happened in late summer when the August heat was so heavy most of the animals slept all day. Jack was searching the side of the dirt road for the perfect piece of gravel to aid his digestion.
From the tops of the trees that lined the road, a group of crows cawed. Caw! Caw! Caw! Four crows were perched together on a branch across from a smaller, very shiny crow.
"If you want to be in our gang, you got to kill one," said the biggest crow to the smaller, shiny crow. "We got to know you're tough inside."
"But crows don't kill. They scavenge," whined the shiny crow. "It isn't natural."
"You're a looser, Poe!" the other crow said. "You ain't joining our gang if you can't do it. And if you ain't in our gang, you're our enemy. Your family is our enemy. You'll spend the rest of your life looking over your wing."
Poe hung his head. "All right. I'll do it." He looked down at the road.
The gang leader said, "Go get us that chipmunk down there and you're in."
Poe flew down to the road where Jack stood and landed next to him. Jack looked Poe in the eye and Poe looked down at the ground.
"You're not really going to break the laws of nature to be in some kind of silly crow gang, are you?" Jack asked.
"I can't spend the rest of my life always looking over my wing. I have little brothers and sisters at home." Poe sighed. "The gang will help my mother feed them. My father flew out on us."
"I'm truly sorry to hear that. But, you don't look like a killer. I've seen a hawk and you're not one."
"I'm not a killer. But if I go back up there without you, I'm dead meat. Oh, woe is me, either I'm dead or you're dead! Whatever should I do?"
"Now, now, let's think this thing through. I'm not certain either one of us has to end up dead."
"But we all end up dead, one way or the other. We're born. We die. That's it."
Jack rolled his eyes. "My, you are a gloomy fellow. What about all of the love life has to offer in between our birth and death?"
"Life is more sorrow than it's worth. You love someone and they leave you."
"Sometimes, yes, sometimes they leave you. But there were all those times when they were with you."
Poe shuffled his feet and blinked his eyes. "Making it all worth it?"
"Yes, I think so. Life is love. Love is life," said Jack with a smile.
"If you say so," Poe said. He smiled.
"I'll help you if you promise Jack one thing."
Poe cocked his head and blinked. "What's that?"
"You have to quit the gang if they ever ask you to break the laws of nature again."
"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a twig right through my eye!"
Then Jack explained his plan to Poe, and they put it into place. Poe pretended to peck Jack. Jack pretended to die. Poe gently picked Jack up in his beak, carried him to the treetop and laid him over a tree branch. Poe got in the gang. With his claws, Poe picked up Jack by the scruff of his neck, telling the crows his brothers and sisters were hungry, and flew away.
Jack opened his eyes. The wind rushed through his whiskers and flattened his ears and filled them with its sound. The earth was so very far away and the clouds so very close. Squirrels seemed no bigger than frogs and butterflies no more than fluttering dots.
The flower garden now clumps of color - red, pink, blue, purple, white, yellow. The clumps swayed together in the wind.
Life had many shapes and patterns. Squares. Rectangles. Circles. Ovals. Intersecting lines. Parallel lines. Curves in the road. Paths that ended. Paths that suddenly began.
After they had landed on Mrs. Wilder's grass, very near to the picket fence where Rue was now trapped, Poe had said, "Jack, I owe you an enormous favor."
Today was the day Jack needed the favor returned. He yelled, "Poe, my dear fellow, I need your help!"
Poe cocked his head in Jack's direction. Sugar lifted her head and for a moment, she looked over at Jack.
"Poe! Hurry! It's a matter of life or death!" shouted Jack.
"Death, you say," cawed Poe as he flew in, landing in front of Jack. "Why you know death is the key to my very survival. They die and I eat." He cocked his head and glinted at Jack with a twinkle in his black eyes.
"Yes, yes, no time for small talk." Jack shook his head at Poe's nonsense. "See where that devil has my small friend trapped against the fence?" He pointed toward Rue then whispered his plan into Poe's ear.
Poe swiveled his head toward the fence and then back to Jack. "If I didn't owe you the favor, my answer would be no. It seems as if you are asking me to give up lunch."
But Jack didn't answer. He was already running to Rue.
