Nick meant to wait for Judy. He'd promised he wouldn't read Chapter Thirteen without her. He wasn't even necessarily going to read Chapter Twelve on his own, but he woke up early from a dream and didn't want to go back to sleep.

It was a dream he'd had off and on through the years, since he was eight or nine, a nightmare about being muzzled. The last time he'd had it was after the "predators reverting back to their primitive, savage ways" press conference. Not immediately after, but a couple weeks later, when the attacks continued and even in his conscious life he'd have thoughts like They're coming to get me. It's only a matter of time.

Why now? He was in a safehouse, with safe company. He wasn't scared of Sharla and he certainly wasn't scared of Judy. He wasn't even that scared of the animals threatening Sharla. And, yes, there was negative reaction to mixed couples, but it wasn't predator-specific, not like when the city had been filled with fear of predators insanely attacking.

He was tempted to wake up Judy, have her hold him, comfort him. But Nick still wasn't used to having someone for that, someone he could afford to be vulnerable with. And it was just a dream, right? Still, he didn't have the energy just then to sleep.

So he read the parts of Chapter Eleven he'd skipped over, and all of Chapter Twelve. He was amused by the bits about Bunnyburrow, getting the views of someone who had grown up there but in some ways was almost as much of an outsider as he was. He couldn't help wondering what Gideon's take would've been on it, although as a bully Gideon had reacted to the environment in a very different way than Sharla.

Nick also liked finding out more about bunnies, things that Judy had never told him, things she probably took for granted. He realized he hadn't known the differences between hares and rabbits, although it seemed to be less than between, for instance, fennec and red foxes. Maybe that was how Bucky and Pronk's families felt about the differences between them.

The sentence These are not generally recognized as mixed matings of course, in the way that the matings in the next chapter are, since they can produce offspring was a teaser. Nick tried to imagine someone reading this book without expectations, before the controversy, maybe someone who didn't read the back cover or the table of contents either. Did Chapter Thirteen come as a surprise? Would this hint in Chapter Twelve make the reader want to skip ahead?

Nick did finish Twelve, but he was getting very curious about Thirteen now. Would it be a tragedy if he read it on his own?

He clicked over.

Chapter Thirteen: Mix and Match

There's a tale that goes this way:

"A Rabbit, who was about to have a family, entreated another Rabbit to lend her her burrow until she was able to move about again, and assured her that she should then have it without fail. The other very readily consented, and, with a great deal of civility, resigned it to her immediately. However, when the time was up, she came and paid the first Rabbit a visit, and very modestly intimated that, now that her friend was up and well, she hoped she might have her burrow again, for it was really inconvenient for her to be without it any longer; she must, therefore, be so free as to desire her to provide herself with other lodgings as soon as she could. The other replied that truly she was ashamed of having kept her so long out of her own house, but it was not upon her own account (for, indeed, she was well enough to go anywhere) so much as that of her young, who were yet so weak that she was afraid they would not be able to follow her; and if she would be so good as to let her stay a fortnight longer she should take it for the greatest obligation in the world. The second Rabbit was so good-natured and compassionate as to comply with this request, too, but at the end of the term came and told her positively that she must turn out, for she could not possibly let her be there a day longer. 'Must turn out!' said the first Rabbit. 'We will see about that; for I promise you, unless you can beat me and my whole litter of young, you are never likely to have anything more to do here.' "

The moral is "Give someone an inch and they'll take a mile." But what's notable to me is that no mention is made of the two rabbits' mates. In addition, as we saw in the last chapter, bunnies typically have large families, so there's no reason to assume that the first rabbit would stop at one litter.

Even in the modern world, there's a wide range of mammalian reproduction. And mating and marriage are still somewhat linked to reproduction, although this will vary between groups, and individuals within groups. Not everyone has the Bunnyburrow mindset that animals should have offspring, the more the better, but the assumption remains. How does this affect mixed couples, in reality and in lore, in a world where, as I noted earlier, even rabbits and hares can't reproduce? And what about the ultimate taboo, predator/prey relationships?

A girl I knew in Bunnyburrow was a prey animal with a crush on a predator. She was a good girl and she never told him how she felt, but to this day she still thinks about him and wonders what would've happened if she'd been brave enough to cross species lines.

Nick knew it was crazy even as he thought it, but the first thing to cross his mind was that Sharla was talking about Judy. Nick's Judy. Who was the predator? Not Gideon he hoped. No, she wasn't the sort to fall for a bully, especially not one who hadn't yet apologized. But there were other predators in Bunnyburrow, right? He vaguely remembered felines in the high school yearbook she'd shown him one rainy Sunday afternoon in her apartment. And she was still awfully chummy with that accountant guy, Jaguar.

He shook his head. Judy's courage almost never failed her, so if she had had a crush on a predator back then, she would've done something about it. Also, when he'd first sarcastically brought up the idea of them dating, it didn't seem like anything like that had ever occurred to her. She later told him that she hadn't really given her love life serious thought till she really got to know him. All her boyfriends before Nick were bunnies and casual.

Then Nick realized, the "girl Sharla knew" was probably herself. She was the one with a crush on a predator, maybe one of the felines or maybe someone else. Not Gideon. Heck, maybe it wasn't even someone she went to school with. It could've been a celebrity, like Clawhauser with Gazelle, although the line about "never telling him" suggested that it was someone she'd at least met and gotten to know.

Nick yawned. It was going to take a lot of willpower, but he needed to get some sleep before discussing this with Judy. And frost on the ground or not, they'd have to discuss it outside, away from the cottage and its mysterious other occupant.