Chapter 6: Of Spelling and Counting
Eleven dragged the ticking object to the warren. She was trying to remember something important before the humans relocated her.
"You're bringing that here?" Kentia asked.
"It has my name on it – I'm trying to remember something," Eleven said.
"What's your name?"
"Eleven. The humans gave it to me."
"Eleven," the doe repeated. "Does the ticking not bother you?"
"It does but I'm trying to remember something. It also has my name written on it."
"What does 'written' mean?'
"Like this." Eleven pointed to the object. It had numbers one through twelve on it. She pointed to eleven. "That's my name." She drew 11 on the ground with her claw.
"I see. I'll leave you to it then."
She stared at the object as if it would trigger some memory. The other rabbits weren't fans of the ticking sound so they came to investigate. After a similar explanation, they too took off.
Fiver arrived before too long, joining her in their shared burrow. "What is that?"
"I don't know. It has my name on it."
It was yet again that she had this conversation. Fiver learned her name as well.
"Eleven… do you know what the others are?"
She pointed at the numbers one by one.
"After four comes five… it has to. Where does hrair lie then? What's after twelve?"
"I don't know. I remember that a hundred is somewhere but what does it mean?"
Vilthuril joined them when she returned to the warren. Fiver talked to her about this dilemma. They needed a break from this so they went out for silflay.
The humans left many things behind, and Fiver stepped on something which caused it to speak. "Three rings for Elven-kings in the sky…"
She knew this – the humans spelled her official name wrong so she ended up with two names. "Shh." She wanted to listen in as it continued.
It had been too long since she heard the story.
"That's it?" she said. There was more. A lot more. A group would read to her from time to time. They gave her food to eat. She fiddled around with the device Fiver stepped on. "How does it work?"
There were images but she didn't understand any of it.
"You understood that?" Fiver asked.
"A group of humans kept repeating it from time to time since my name was Elven, and they wanted me to know. Oh, and they put food rings around me while calling me Lady of the Rings. Was a strange time. That wasn't all of it, I want to hear more." She fiddled with the strange device, trying to hear more of the story. She poked and prodded at the device with no success.
"You should eat something. And isn't your name Eleven?" Fiver said.
"It is, and it isn't. The human spelled it wrong officially, but a few decided to call me by what my name should have been. I ended up with two different names."
"What do you mean by spelled?"
Elven drew her name on the ground with her claw. "The human wanted to draw something else." She drew the word eleven on the ground. "See how similar they are?"
Fiver pointed to a letter. "Does this mean anything alone?"
"Something but I don't know what."
"Which name do you like more?'
"It doesn't matter to me."
She started eating the nearby grass.
As she ate, Vilthuril messed around with the device. There was a ringing sound.
"Hello?"
"Hello," Vilthuril said.
"What? Was that?"
Vilthuril repeated what she said.
"James, stop fooling around."
Fiver said, "No one is called James here. Do you need help?"
"Screw you."
Despite what the rabbits did, the other voice did not speak again.
"A rabbit couldn't fit inside this thing," Fiver said. "What was that? What did you do?"
"I put my paw here, then here," Vilthuril said.
Elven just about finished eating and joined the other two in their attempts to use the strange object. None of their attempts to repeat what they did before were successful. When their paws touched it, different images appeared without rhyme or reason. They moved it back to the warren.
"Eleven, what's this?" Bigwig asked.
"We don't know. Do you think something can be trapped inside it? We heard it speak," Elven said.
Bigwig inspected it. "Hello, is anyone in there?" He had his turn with the object, trying to make it do something. No sounds came out.
They carried it back to their burrow. Now, they had two strange objects.
"Why does it move?" Fiver pointed to the first object that constantly ticked.
"I don't know," Elven said.
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around numbers beyond four. There are only three of us here. Would it not be less confusing if we had numbers after four? Instead of a hrair, how about five or six? I should be familiar with five since that's nearly my name. What I need is more rabbits."
They went to find Hazel so he could call for a meeting. It was strange enough that Hazel hadn't called for once since they came back with their home in such disarray. They couldn't find Hazel anywhere – this made sense that Hazel was probably still somewhere in Vleflain.
Fiver still wanted to go ahead with his plan so he got Bigwig to get the rabbits together. He dragged the ticking object to the center of the honeycomb.
Once enough rabbits gathered, he started to speak, "We found this, and it gave us numbers greater than four. No longer do we need to use hrair as often."
"What comes next?" a rabbit asked.
"Strangely enough, it is five. Almost like my name." He had five rabbits step up to illustrate the number. "That is five."
"And next?"
Fiver paused for a moment. "Elven, what comes after five again?"
"Six," Elven said.
"Isn't your name Eleven?"
"I remembered that I have two names. It's quite a story."
Fiver had to ask Elven for the rest of the numbers for he did not commit them to memory. While having numbers up to twelve did provide clarity instead of just using hrair, it would take some time to adjust.
The rabbits within the honeycomb split into groups, trying to make sense of all this.
"This is… eight." Dandelion pointed to a group of seven rabbits.
Elven shook her head. "That's seven."
"This is harder than I imagined. Would you be willing to tell us why you have two names?"
Elven told her tale again of how it came to be. The topic of spelling came up. Spelling was a foreign concept to rabbits for Lapine was a spoken language. They understood enough to know it was similar yet different and that was enough.
When Hazel returned to the warren with the last few rabbits, the ones already at Watership Down were eager to introduce him to the concept of numbers greater than four. They needed a meeting to address the state of the ground around the warren as well.
Hazel wanted the rabbits to move anything unwanted far away. It was their home and they couldn't count on anyone else to tidy it up.
"What are your thoughts about the new numbers?" Fiver asked.
"It would make things a lot clearer. Five's easy enough… but the others…"
Rabbits were willing to help their Chief Rabbit learn the new numbers. Just like the last time, there was plenty of confusion about which number meant what.
"Why don't we start with one number at a time?" Elven suggested after she became tired of correcting everyone. "Five should be easy enough, then we can review tomorrow."
Given the opportunity, they were eager to put it off for later.
Once more, Elven was with Fiver and Vilthuril in their burrow. They had two strange objects to keep them company. Fiver spent most of his time trying to make the non-ticking object talk.
After many touches, a rabbit appeared on the object.
"Hello?" Fiver said. More accurately – he appeared on the object. The rabbit within mirrored his movements. "Look at this!"
Elven was at a loss.
Vilthuril glanced at the object, upon seeing herself, she tackled Fiver and Elven away. "You might get sucked inside."
They took the ticking object out of their burrow. Vilthuril went so far as to collapse their burrow to bury the object.
Elven and Vilthuril started digging a new burrow – or rather Vilthuril had to teach Elven how to dig a burrow.