Pete seated himself in the recliner and placed his hands in his lap. “Son, I know it has been hard adjusting to life here after the city. I took you away from your friends and all.” He trailed off, suddenly aware of just how lonely the boy appeared. He felt a stab of guilt, aware he’d been so absorbed in his own grief that he’d failed to see the signs in his child. “But pranks are not the way to go on…”

A strange look spread over the boy’s face. “Dad! You think I’m the marauder!” Pete opened his mouth to make a soothing remark but stopped short when Danny began giggling.

“Dad, would you please come outside?” He jumped up from the worn sofa and ran over to tug at Pete’s arm. Bewildered, Officer Wilson let himself be guided out into the waning afternoon sunshine. Danny led his father to the small shed next to the garage. Pete had filled the garage with tools and bicycles, letting the spillover go to the shed. In the smaller building a rickety pen had been constructed with plywood and baling wire. Danny headed straight to the pen.

The animal inside was enormous. Maybe fifteen or twenty pounds, Pete realized, as it stood up on its hind legs to sniff at Danny’s outstretched hand. He had no idea that rabbits could be so huge. The monster regarded him with sharp black eyes; his coat was white with large splotches of black fur. Black circles framed its eyes and made a band across its wriggling nose.

“I checked the Library today,” Danny said proudly. “They had a book on raising rabbits. Petunia is a Checkered Giant!”

“She’s a giant, all right,” Pete whistled, while his cop’s eye took in the broken latch on the pen, and the places where gnawing teeth had loosened the door. When his eyes returned to his son, he got the full force of the boy’s silent plea. “Okay, does that book say they can be house trained?” he asked, receiving a vehement nod. Danny launched himself at his father, throwing his thin arms around Pete’s knees. “Oh yes, Dad. Thanks! I bought a litter pan when we were in Gallup last week. She can stay in my bedroom.”

Pete doubted Petunia would confine herself to the bedroom for long, but the mystery was solved. He resigned himself to being the butt of jokes for weeks to come. “Okay, but she can’t leave the house, and your next three allowances go to making restitution,” he warned his son. Danny had released the enormous rabbit from the pen, and she lip-lopped contentedly at his side right up to the door of the house.

It had taken a wise older man to see what he had missed right in front of his eyes, Pete thought. Watching Danny race Petunia down the short hallway to his room, his father’s lips curved into a rueful grin. Then he had a thought.

Maybe he’d go tell Susie Barton what had transpired and how he now had a big bunny under house arrest… It was a beginning.