'The Tale of Rachel Rabbit' (children's story) written by Andrew Drury

This story was written on 24 May 2018

 

There was a white bunny with blue eyes called Rachel rabbit.

She lived in a burrow near the sea with Daddy, Mummy and her sister Laura. It was a lovely place where there was plenty of fish in the water and many birds in the sky. The grass was lush and green.

Rachel was well-known for talking and talking and talking.

When she went to school, she was not bothered about playing with her friends for she wanted just to chat with them.

Rachel was often in trouble with her teacher because, instead of finding out how to do sums or how to write stories, all Rachel wanted to do was to share her thoughts with her friends.

 Her frustrated teacher shouted out many times, “Rachel, will you be quiet! I am trying to explain this piece of work to the class!”

 On her way home, she would stop to talk to the old beetle dawdling down the road.

 There was the time when she almost trod on Mr Ladybird as she was too busy chatting to Mrs. Thrush, who was on a high branch in a nearby tree.

 As soon as she reached the burrow, it was often time to have tea. The munching of the dandelion salad was drowned out by Rachel’s non-stop chattering. There was not a moment’s silence for Daddy, Mummy and Laura heard all about her day.

 Her chatter continued as she put on her pyjamas when she went to bed. The words were muffled when the top was over her face, but that did not stop her from talking.

 Her favourite activity was to go down to the nearby beach. She carried her red bucket and blue spade so that she could build the most enormous sand castles. Even in this activity, Rachel was not silent. She spoke aloud to herself and to anyone else within hearing distance about the imaginary histories that she had built.

 One day, Rachel was alone on the beach as Daddy, Mummy and Laura had gone home in order to prepare dinner. She had promised her parents that she would not be too long and that she would not be too far behind them.

 However, she was distracted by the pretty shells on the beach, the rays of the sun glistening off their rippled surfaces. She started telling the gulls how the shells were so pretty. The birds did not seem interested and kept talking and laughing among themselves.

 The gulls gradually flew away until there was only one left, perched on a wooden pole surrounded by the incoming tide.

 Rachel continued to talk to the bird, holding up a particularly beautiful shell to show him, whilst not realising that the waves were now all around her.

 She had been too busy talking that she had not noticed the water lapping at her paws!

 The salty water splashed so much that her whiskers started to get wet and there were even droplets that landed in her mouth.

 “Help! Help!” she shouted at the top of her voice.

 She was scared as she did not know what to do.

 In the distance, there was a small figure that became larger as he bounded across the sand dunes. She was very happy as she saw that it was her Daddy. He always knew what to do in terrible situations.

 He jumped into the water and started to swim to where she was located. There were large splashes as his large back paws propelled him across the water.

 He reached the island of sand where Rachel was standing that was getting smaller. He placed her on his back and then swam back to where the sand on the beach was dry.

 Rachel got off his back and started to cry with relief – she was so glad to be back to safety. Her Daddy put his big front paws around her as he hugged her, and he comforted her with the soft words that she was alright now.

 Rachel looked at him with big doleful eyes, promising him that she would never talk so much in the future.

He looked knowingly at her and said, “I am sure that you mean it.”

 It was not very long before the mouth of Rachel Rabbit was opening and shutting very quickly with words rapidly coming out. On the next day, her teacher had to tell her off for Rachel was recounting her escape from the sea when she should have been learning her four times table.

I think Rachel never learnt to be quiet and, the last time I heard, she was being entered into the Olympic Games as she could talk for all Rabbitdom.  


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