It was late afternoon as Jezebel awoke to the sound of the front doorbell. Brian had programmed it to play the first four bars of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Ode to Joy. Then Jezebel heard the sound of Cathy heading downstairs to open the door, followed by a familiar voice. Doctor Hooper was here.

  “Jezebel!” called Cathy. “Doctor Hooper is here to see you!”

  Jezebel hurried to the top of the stairs and greeted the doctor.

  “Hi, Doctor,” smiled Jezebel. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Very good,” he smiled.

  Cathy finished making the doctor a cup of coffee as Jezebel entered the kitchen.

  “Ah… I hear you were a little Rip Van Winkle this morning, Jezebel?” smiled the doctor, taking a few sips of coffee before laying some instruments onto a clean white cloth he unfolded onto the table from his bag of tricks.

  “No need to take off your top. Just turn around so I can listen to your heart.” The doctor placed on his stethoscope. It felt cold to Jezebel.

  “Hmm… OK. Sit down,” asked Doctor Hooper.

  Jezebel sat down as Doctor Hooper carried out several tests: blood pressure, reflexes, hearing, eyesight, standing and balance, and a few more to boot. Cathy sat at the end of the table and looked on pensively.

  “Just as I suspected,” smiled the doctor.

  “It is?” wondered Jezebel.

  “You’re perfectly healthy,” he nodded. “How many times has this sleepwalking occurred, do you know?”

  “Only once, I think,” suggested Jezebel, unsure what to say.

  “Sleepwalking is a parasomnia that causes certain behaviors while you sleep. Somnambulism—”

  “Sleepwalking,” interjected Cathy.

  “Very good, Cathy,” smiled the doctor. “The disorder can be simple walking or talking, to even a more serious form of attempting to drive.”

  “Lucky I don’t have a car,” said Jezebel, hoping the doctor would finish soon.

  “It’s actually more common among children. Brian told me neither he nor Pam sleepwalk. Have you had any falls lately?”

  “No,” said Jezebel. The doctor took notes.

  “Are you on any medication?”

  “No,” said Jezebel.

  “Migraines?”

  “No,” said Jezebel.

  “OK… I’ll write down my recommendations for your parents. So you can give this letter to Brian. A set bedtime pattern. Eight hours’ sleep a night. Pam can wake you thirty minutes earlier than normal. Reduce any stress. Improve room safety — make sure there are no dangerous objects to walk or fall over. And a bedroom camera. That’s if you don’t mind your parents seeing what you’re up to in your bedroom during the night?”

  Jezebel looked stunned.

  “OK. We’ll just do that for now. If it persists, we’ll look at further tests and medication.”

  Doctor Hooper had a large mouthful of coffee, packed away his tools into his doctor’s bag, handed Cathy an envelope, then walked to the front door with Jezebel and Cathy.

  “Do you have anything you need to tell me, Jezebel? No one’s harming you at school? Bullies?”

  “No, nothing at all, Doctor Hooper. Well… nothing that hasn’t been nailed into place,” smiled Jezebel.

  “Nailed into place? OK… no ghosts keeping you up at night?” he smiled.

  Jezebel coughed. “Um… no, Doctor Hooper,” she smiled, quickly glancing at Cathy to see her suppressing laughter with her mouth tightly shut.

  He nodded and left. Cathy and Jezebel watched Doctor Hooper close the door of his shiny green Mini Cooper and drive away.

  “I need a drink,” said Jezebel, gathering the ingredients to make a banana milkshake with whipped cream and a strawberry on top. Aunt Cathy headed back upstairs with her tea. She also needed a drink. A stiff one.

  Jezebel sat slurping it all down in three long sips. Suddenly the sound of music filled the house. Jezebel jumped up and went to the entrance where she could watch Aunt Cathy coming down the stairs dancing to the Beatles. Jezebel smiled. Cathy had some catchy moves as a dancer.

  “Andy Knight, we did it, we did it! Come on, come on…” clapped Aunt Cathy, singing along.

  Tibbar appeared behind Cathy, also jumping to the music. Cathy got startled when she noticed Tibbar, then laughed all the same. They all danced into the kitchen together singing.

  Outside, the next-door neighbour Mrs. Jefferies approached the house and did what she normally did: she rudely peered in through the kitchen window.

  “Is anybody home?” called out Mrs. Jefferies.

  By doing this, Mrs. Jefferies had seen Brian through the kitchen window doing various things on various occasions including:

  ?  Having too much chocolate cake in his mouth

  ?  Pretending to be muscular to Pamela

  ?  Asleep at the kitchen table

  ?  Doing a terrible impression of an opera singer

  ?  Picking his nose — and it looked like he ate it

  Plus an assortment of other personal activities best left unsaid.

  But this time, to her astonishment, she saw a dancing rabbit leading Jezebel and a familiar woman through the kitchen doing a conga line. She turned away and walked slowly back to her house next door. She felt giddy at the memory of seeing a rabbit dancing. Mrs Jefferies opened her medicine cabinet and counted her pills one by one. She lost count so many times that she decided to go to bed and dreamed of dancing rabbits.

  They finished dancing and settled back onto the couch and laughed.

  “It still shocks me when Tibbar turns into a real rabbit,” smiled Cathy.

  Jezebel looked away. It was sad that Cathy was not invited to Fariddion.

  “All this frozen food,” complained Cathy, sorting through the freezer. “How about I order some pizza for dinner, Jezebel?”

  “Sure, but don’t order the super hot one — it left my tongue sore for weeks,” complained Jezebel, poking out her tongue. “Vegetarian pizza for me tonight.”

  “Check. I’ll order them now for an early dinner, and when they arrive I’ll be back down,” smiled Cathy, retying her shoelace.

  Cathy went upstairs and ordered the pizzas.

  Cathy came back down when the pizzas arrived. She paid at the door, then carried the hot boxes to the kitchen table. They both ate a slice and agreed it was good and pretended they had been starving.

  “What’s an early memory you have of Tibbar, Cathy?” asked Jezebel, closing her pizza box.

  “An early memory?” thought Aunt Cathy, tapping her chin. “Well… hmm… oh. When you were around two years old… I’d forgotten all about this,” she frowned. “I was close to your age. Tibbar warned me not to go near the river.”

  Aunt Cathy held her hands closer together.

  “I went there anyway, of course. Stupid me. I didn’t really believe in Tibbar yet. And why would you? It was a hot day so I went for a swim. Makes sense, right? Once I was in though, I suddenly realised how strong the current was. It was too late. It swept me along the river like a cork. There was no way to get out because the side of the bank was too high. And some of it was collapsing due to the water pressure. I spotted a large tree branch as I came around a corner and just managed to hang onto it not too far from the riverbank. I couldn’t do anything but hold on. No… actually I was pulling myself along it, I recall now. But the current was dangerously fast and the water was freezing. Not only that, my dress was getting snagged on parts of the branches, and I was having a terrible time trying to untangle myself without being dragged away. There’s no doubt I was terrified. I was struggling too.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “What happened?” asked Jezebel, intrigued, starting a second slice, wide-eyed.

  “Well… what happened was, I was crying. I started yelling for help. Then, to my immense relief — without dragging out the story for too long,” grimaced Cathy, placing her hands over her face for a second, “out of nowhere came two dogs who watched me from the riverbank. They barked and barked as I kept calling out for help. After about a minute of this, two men with guns came up to the dogs and looked alarmed when they saw the predicament I was in. It was the Wellers.”

  “Peter and Paul?” asked Jezebel.

  “Thank goodness. Yes. They told me after they had pulled me out of the water that it was very lucky they had found me at all. They had been following their dogs, which had been chasing a rabbit.”

  “Tibbar saved you!” said Jezebel, astounded, putting down her pizza slice.

  Cathy nodded. She let out a fragile sigh and looked close to tears.

  “When they told Dad, he was really upset with me. Anyway… on the riverbank where they pulled me out, Paul handed me Tibbar the toy. I couldn’t believe it. Said I must have dropped it. There were no words to explain how he got there and the relief I was feeling from being saved. None. I had been scared out of my wits.”

  “That’s a very scary story. But I’m relieved Tibbar was there for you too,” sighed Jezebel.

  Cathy rushed her handkerchief from her pocket and sneezed.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it? And he certainly did.” Then Aunt Cathy looked at Jezebel with intensity in her eyes as she reached for another slice. “I’d left Tibbar at home on the toy box. That same toy box,” she pointed towards Jezebel’s room.

  “Hooray for Tibbar!” smiled Jezebel.

  “I’ll say,” smiled Cathy. “Pamela was so worried about me when I got back. Her eleven-year-old little sister was wet and muddy from head to toe. She cleaned me up. I guess she didn’t want the parents to find out. But we both ended up in big trouble. Oh my…”

  “Whatever is the matter?” asked Jezebel.

  “I told my best friend Veronica about it.” Cathy shook her head. “She laughed and laughed at me. Some best friend I chose. She thought I was crazy. I never realised at the time she really wasn’t that nice to me. She told everyone and that was it! ‘What an idiot. What an imagination,’ they all said. Anyway… I crushed her like a fly for that little indiscretion,” laughed Cathy. “Mabbit — I mean Tibbar — told me Veronica’s mum called her Whoopsy.”

  Jezebel laughed.

  “I still really didn’t believe Tibbar was talking to me. In all the time I knew him, he never appeared as a real rabbit. Never!”

  “Really?” frowned Jezebel.

  “Yes, really… anyway, after I called her Whoopsy in front of her friends and said, ‘Why get angry at me? That’s what your mother calls you at home,’ I protested. She ran away crying, shouting, ‘How did you find out?’ Jackpot. I’m not a mean person, Jezebel, but I can’t stand bullies who tease people for kicks every day. They quickly forgot about my rabbit story and she never teased me again. Come to think of it, we never talked again. And that was fine by me.”

  Cathy started on her second slice and had a sip of Shiraz. Slowly Jezebel nodded.

  “You keep saying he. Do you think Tibbar is a boy?”

  “I used to call him Mabbit,” said Cathy. “Mabbit the Rabbit.”

  Cathy used a napkin to wipe her mouth.

  “Mabbit. That is a boy’s name. If you think he’s a boy, that’s OK. But his real name is Tibbar. He doesn’t have anything below,” giggled Jezebel.

  Cathy giggled too.

  “Maybe that’s just what happens once we cross over,” suggested Cathy, eating more pizza.

  “He doesn’t seem to mind,” said Jezebel. “There — I called Tibbar a he.”

  Aunt Cathy made a toast with Jezebel to seal the deal. He was a boy rabbit.

  “That was a close call, Cathy. We were so proud of how you saved yourself. I have a question,” said Tibbar.

  “I’m listening,” smiled Jezebel.

  “There’s no more to that story, I think,” explained Cathy.

  “Not that. Didn’t you hear Tibbar just now?” asked Jezebel.

  “Oh. Did he talk? I didn’t hear that.” Cathy took another bite.

  “What would you like to change if you could, Jezebel?” said Tibbar.

  “Anything at all?” asked Jezebel, full of possibilities.

  “Yes. Anything,” suggested Tibbar, jumping up onto the table.

  “Can I think about it and tell you in the morning?” asked Jezebel, rubbing her firm chin.

  “Yes, tell me in the morning,” said Tibbar.

  Cathy thought nothing of Tibbar’s question. She was still reliving her near-death experience in her mind.

  “I think I’ll play some guitar soon. If you don’t mind?” said Aunt Cathy.

  “I don’t mind. I haven’t heard you play guitar for ages,” encouraged Jezebel.

  After dinner, Cathy tuned her guitar and then began to play and sing with enthusiasm. Tibbar also liked how Aunt Cathy played guitar. He had encouraged her to learn the guitar in her childhood. Aunt Cathy had forgotten that. Cathy played a bunch of songs very well. Her singing had improved, thought Jezebel.

  “Well, if you don’t mind?” asked Cathy, placing her guitar back into its case then fastening it shut. “The fact that the guest room has a spa bath is playing on my mind. And there’s nibbles and a baby bottle of champagne in the bar fridge. Then I’ll watch a romantic movie that Pamela has told me about. Sound good?”

  “You enjoy, Cathy. You deserve it,” smiled Jezebel.

  “Really?” asked Cathy, sweetly.

  “Of course. There will be plenty more adventures to tire you out tomorrow,” laughed Jezebel. “We’re just getting started!”

  “Oh. Well in that case,” smiled Cathy. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” smiled Jezebel.

  And Cathy raced upstairs to fill the bath.

  Later, as she lay in bed, she wondered if there was a chance Tibbar could help her with the terrible state of her financial situation. Cathy didn’t always let others know about her difficulties. She played her cards close to her chest.