The Amazing Adventures of Michael Arthur and his Exceptionally Intelligent Rabbit
an excerpt

“My name,” Michael Arthur said as he swept off his overly large top hat, “is Michael Arthur.” He would have bowed in introduction if the motion wouldn’t have dislodged the black and white rabbit on his shoulder.

“I’m Bo,” the chubby blond boy said. “Bo Brighton.” He held out a stubby hand for Michael to shake and Michael obligingly shook it.

“It’s very nice to make your acquaintance,” the boy who was Michael told the boy who was Bo. Michael blinked mousey brown hair out of his eyes as he withdrew his small hand.

There was a long pause as the two surveyed each other with the curiosity only children have when meeting each other. Grown ups much rather judgments over curiosity.

Michael wore a top hat that almost came down over his eyes and coat tails that were so exceedingly long that they trailed on the ground behind him, picking up dust and all manner of substances that can be found on the ground. Bo wore a grey school uniform that was a bit too small for him and made him squirm. His socks and shorts didn’t quite meet where they were supposed to, so that his grubby white knees were exposed. Michael had wide hazel eyes barely visible under hair that most desperately needed a haircut and a great deal of freckles speckling his small nose. Bo had no freckles and blue eyes, but freckles wouldn’t have suited his round face and curly blond hair so his lack of freckles was fortunate. Michael thought that Bo looked to be about the same age as himself, maybe younger, but most likely eight just like him. Michael thought being eight was rather grown up, and Bo would have agreed, but the grown up world (like Miss Wordelsworth) saw only two children sitting there in the street.

“Why do you have two first names? “ Bo asked Michael after he was sure they had both finished with their respective observations of each other.
“Did your parents think you needed more naming than other people?”

“What d’you mean?” the boy with two names asked. “You’ve got two names, too. Just like me.”

Bo shook his curly head. “I’ve got a last name, sure. But I’m just Bo. You’ve got two names, see? Michael – that’s one, and Arthur – and that makes two, see?”

“Arthur is my last name,” Michael insisted.

“But Arthur’s a first name,” Bo said simply.

“Not for me it isn’t,” Michael gave a little nod as if that should solve things.

Bo shrugged. “If you like it...”

“What would I do if I don’t?” Michael asked. His grammar would have made Miss Wordelsworth cringe, so it was a very good thing she was back at home, far away where she couldn’t hear.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. You couldn’t very well change it,” Bo admitted thoughtfully. “Unless you just started introducin’ yourself as something different than your name. Actors do that sometimes, you know. They travel all over the place performing and all, so they just take up a name that suits them that people can remember and say, ‘Did you know Berry Codswald’s in town for tonight?’ and other people can say that they didn’t and so they get told and then Berry Codswald, who actually isn’t Berry Codswald at all, has a proper audience come and see him act. See?”

Michael thought he saw. “But I quite like my name. So when I become a magician people will say, ‘Did you know Michael Arthur and his magic act’s in town tonight?’ and of course the people will say that they did know and they’ll all come watch me do my magic.”

“You’re a magician?” Bo’s eyes went wide.

Michael grinned and nodded. “Not a professional one yet, but I will be, just wait. You can be the first one to get a ticket.”

“That’s why you’re dressed so funny,” Bo said as his eyes returned to normal size in understanding.

“I’m not dressed funny, I’m dressed like a magician.” Michael informed him.

“And you’re mama let’s you?” Bo asked.

Michael made a face. He didn’t call his mother “Mama” he called her “Mother.” There’s a very easy way to tell what the relationship is between an upper class child and his parents if you only take a look at how the child calls them. “Mama” and “Papa” means the child and his parents have a good relationship, or at least one where they know each other. “Mother” and “Father” means its a rather distant relationship and when the child addresses his parents its formal and a bit stiff. Michael’s relationship with his parents was most deffinitely stiff. He rarely saw them, and when he did they would ask him how his studies were coming along, if he was being a gentleman and was his Noiftese improving? Michael would say they were coming along wonderfully, that he was being a gentleman, and he would say something in Noiftese to please them. When and if Michael ever hugged either of his parents it always felt immensely odd. So it was only natural that he call them “Mother” and “Father.” The idea of calling them anything else had never crossed his mind.

But Michael was not one to carry on about his family or its absense. He found no reason and he didn’t think it odd in the least what names he called his mother and father. He’d always been left in the care of Miss Wordelsworth, and before her Nanny Norrison. This was nothing strange. So he told Bo that his mother didn’t mind his dressing like a magician. But then he added more honestly that she really didn’t entirely know, but that was alright.

Suddenly Bo’s eyes looked overly watery and he cast them down to the street. He sighed rather glumly and sat down on the curb.

Michael sat down beside him and asked, “What’s the matter?”

Bo still didn’t look up. “I – I ran away.”

“Ran away from who?” Michael asked, confused by this sudden metamorphis from cheerful to teary eyed.

“Well, I ran away from boarding school but I kind of ran away from mama and papa, too.” Bo wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked up from his shoes to stare at Madam Mallard’s Hat Shop across the street. “It’s just that Randall – my cousin – he was telling me that it’d be awful. He told me how mean the other boys are and he told me that the professors hit you and all sorts of horrid things. Randall knows, he’s ten and he’s been going for three years. He says that the other boys will pick on me because I’m young and I’m new. He said it happens to everyone when they first come but it get’s better. He added ‘eventually’ to that, though. What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Eventually?’” Bo looked up as if Michael might know the meaning of it.

Michael must not have looked like he knew because Bo kept going, “I didn’t want eventually, and so when they put me on the train I didn’t go. They thought I was on the train but I wasn’t really. I just couldn’t go, it would have been awful. So I got on the next train because it said it was going to Mickryt. But then when I got off,” Bo took a shuddering breath as he remembered, “there were so many strangers. It was just as scarey as school, maybe more, I wouldn’t know. And I just started walking, and that’s when I saw you and you looked like you knew where you were so I said ‘Hullo.’”

Michael remembered Bo saying “Hullo.” He hadn’t thought much of Bo’s “Hullo” at the time. It seemed like a perfectly normal thing for one boy to say to another. Then Michael had introduced himself and they had begun to talk and now they were here. Michael didn’t question that Bo gotten on a train for Mickryt, but perhaps he should have. In Michael’s mind, Mickryt was obviously the best, and most exciting of all cities. It was his city after all. Where he had grown up and played and explored. It was a wonderful city. Why shouldn’t Bo want to come to it?

“Have you been to Mickryt before?” Michael asked.

“Once, when I was small. I don’t remember it very well,” Bo said. The water had gone from his eyes by now and he had stopped taking such an interest in Madam Mallard’s hat desplays.

“Then me and Quib will have to give you a tuor,” Michael declared. He stood up suddenly and extended an arm for Bo to pull himself up with.

Bo took his arm and stood up himself. “Who’s Quib?” Bo asked, some of the childish sparkle coming back to his eyes.

“Quib’s my rabbit,” Michael told him. “He’s very smart. Maybe the smartest rabbit alive. But Quib says I can’t make assumptions when I haven’t met every rabbit alive.”

Bo looked shyly at Quib, still perched on Michael’s shoulder. “Why is he wearing specs?”

Michael took Quib down from his vantage point and held him awkwardly in his little hands. “He’s nearsighted,” Michael said as if it were the most normal thing in the world for his rabbit to be wearing spectacles.

“Oh.” Bo looked into Quib’s large brown eyes and still found it exceedingly odd to see the gleam of glass between them.

“Want to hold him?” Michael asked.

“That’s alright,” Bo said politely.

Michael kept holding out the rabbit. “No go on. He doesn’t know what to think of you, yet. Maybe if he smells you he’ll start to like you.”

“Well, okay, then...” Bo recieved the rabbit and cradled him like a baby. “He’s awful soft.”

“Isn’t he? He just had a bath last time I had one. He used to scare Nanny Norrison something awful. She thought he was a dead rat once. She screamed so terribly loud,” Michael giggled as he remembered his old nanny. “But Nanny Norrison went into tirement. I think it was a very good idea for her to do so. She used to be falling asleep all the time. It’s how I snuck out so often. She never noticed, she was so old and tired, and as nearsighted as Quib. She used to confuse me and the rocking chair.”

“Do you mean she went into retirement?” Bo asked.

“Maybe,” Michael shrugged. “But now I have Miss Wordelsworth and she hardly ever lets me out. Her and her history and her sums.” Michael stuck out his tongue to show his distaste.

“Is she your governess then?” Bo inquired, encouraging polite conversation as he had been taught without showing too much interest. Bo had always run into problems with the not showing an excessive amount of interest. He was an awfully curious little boy and sometimes he couldn’t contain all his questions.

“Yes,” Michael said sourly.

“You don’t like her very much?” Bo prompted.

Michael considered. Thoughts of Miss Wordelsworth drifted into his head; thoughts of her and her lumpy baloon skirts, her cutting voice that made him want to sink into the floor and the way her face turned purple with pink splotches every time he behaved in a way that was not suitable for a young gentleman to behave.

“I s’pose not,” Michael said. He put in the word “s’pose” particularly to spite Miss Wordelsworth.

Bo thought for a second. “I’d much rather have a governess than have to go to some dreadful boarding school.”

“You,” Michael said pointedly, “have never met my governess. I’m sure not all of them are bad, but mine certainly is.”

After a moment Bo handed Quib back to Michael.

Upon the reception of his rabbit Michael suddenly began to grin broadly. He turned his grin on Bo and said, “I almost completely forgot! Me and Quib simply must give you a tour, what with you not being from here and all.” Michael then threw out one of his arms, making his coat fit even more oddly, and exclaimed in a grand voice, “Bo Brighton, I present to you, the city of Mickryt!”

Just at that moment of grand introduction a steam-carriage was passing by, and as it did and as Michael threw out his arm the carriage wheel rolled through a muddy puddle and splashed up water and murk. It was in this way that Bo Brighton would remember his first few hours in Mickryt. It is an odd thing how memories work sometimes.

Bo blinked. Michael beamed. Quib’s whiskers twitched.

Michael swept off his top hat for the second time in the last few minutes. “Sir,” he adressed young Bo, “May Quib and myself offer you our estimed tour-guiding services?”

“Indubatably,” Bo declared. It didn’t really make much sense as an answer to Michael’s question, but Bo liked the word indubatably and was of the resolve to use it every occasion he possibly could. Context was of no concern.

“Then onward!” Michael cried.

And with that, the two boys, one freckly and one blond, accompanied by the freckled boy’s nearsighted spotted rabbit, all ventured off into the great tangle of streets that is the city of Mickryt.