Which is the end of the recognition.
Millicent Bunny knows that one front foot is one front foot. And that one front foot is one front foot. And behind one front foot Millicent finds one back foot. Every time it is it is so. By the side of one front foot is one front foot. By the side of one back foot is one back foot. (Millicent finds it a little difficult to find this. She is usually crawling her head under her tummy to find out, and just when she sees all the legs, be they front or back, they seem to jump in the air, and Millicent Bunny is lying on her back and her legs are lying on top of her. And then she has to start all over again.) So Millicent Bunny knows quite well that one front foot is one front foot. And she thinks she is quite sure that by one back foot is one back foot, and so she has to check this. Which is mostly when Millicent finds she is lying on her back and her legs are lying on top of her.
Millicent Bunny knows that one and one. And now she ius here again, lying on her back and all her legs are lying on top of her. So one and one.
And she thinks she knows (but she is not quite sure), and one and one.
That is how it is with Millicent Bunny, and once it is like that, that is how it is.
It had been a long hot summer. Millicent Bunny had started when the summer was very small. It had been such a small summer at the time,
that the sun, when it poked its nose over the top of the earth was only just strong enough to reach to the tip of Millicent Bunny's nose.
If she lay down long enough facing it, she could just feel the sun tickling her warm furry nose as she twitched it happily.
Millicent Bunny had started at the same time.
When the sun was only just strong enough to reach the end of her nose, Millicent Bunny was only just strong enough to climb to the door of her burrow
and say good morning to it. Each day as she walked on the dainty furry feet towards the door she was getting stronger. Each day as the sun
peered harder and harder over the top of the land it climbed higher and higher.
One day Millicent Bunny realised that it was spring, so she bounced up the burrow, skipping all the way to the door. And at the door she met the sun,
which had bounced all the way into the sky, and landed at her doorstep with a bump, knocking Millicent Bunny right back to the bottom of the burrow again in surprise.
Millicent Bunny laughed. She became firm friends with the sun. Every day they would get out of bed at the same time and the sun would bound over the ground to meet her.
Millicent Bunny would bound across her bedroomn to meet the sun, and they would sit together by the windowsill talking to eachother.br>
Millicent's nose would twitch every time the sun tickled it. They would stay by the windowsill until it was time for Millicent to get herself some breakfast
, when she would skip along the burrow, out the door and into the meadow. Between eating the grass and singing to herself, she woulod catch her shadow in her
arms and dance with the sun.
Because the sun was young and joyful too, it would dance with her, sprinkling the ground with fresh white sparkles, tickling her nose until it laughed
all by itself and kissing her on the eyes until she sneezed and fell over.
And through the spring that was skipping across the land and the summer that was dozing by the trees, Millicent Bunny and the sun grew up together as the best of friends,
and hardly a day went by when they didn't have time to stop and say hello to eachother. And although the sun worked harder at his shining
and Millicent Bunny worked harder making her burrow into the most comfortable house you can imagine, they still had long conversations with eachother.
Millicent Bunny would invite the sun inside her doorway to see the new wallpaper she had hung, and the sun would invite Millicent Bunny out
into the meadow to see the way his white sparkles had grown into rich yellow beams, and the marvellous way he ahd of bouncing them off the buttercups.
And Millicent Bunny knew it was fine because the sun was there with her. And the sun knew it was fine because Millicent Bunny was there.
As the summer started to end, Millicent Bunny and the sun were the best of friends.
Every night as he went to bed, the sun would send his last orange beam right up to Millicent Bunny's window, and Millicent Bunny would kiss him right where
he landed, tuck herself up in bed and sleep soundly through the night, until the morning came. In the morning, the first thing the sun would do was
send a beam of soft orange light in through Millicent Bunny's window to wake her up, and as he landed softly on her pillow Millicent Bunny would
kiss him good morning, and go straight through to the kitchen and pour herself a glass of cool milk, so that the sun had something to sparkle on as he woke
himself up.
One morning Millicent Bunny woke up, and she noticed that the earth was moving. The sun was sprinkling itself across the illow, or perhaps the pillow was gathering it together again.
Millicent Bunny wasn't quite sure.
She could feel it from her short white tail, through her thick brown fur, right to the end of her long white whiskers as they bounced up and down underneth her twitching nose.
On one side of her burrow, and then on the other, Millicent could see that the earth was moving.
Through her little door ad her little window Millicent could see first the ground and then the sky, a her burrow bounced up and down underneth the twitching earth.
Milicent looked out of her bouncing window into the meadow, and there she saw that even the beams of light from the sun were moving back and forward.
First they were all swept towards her, and then they were all swept away from her to the end of the meadow. Then they all rushed up the meadow, through her little garden
and straight in the window of Millicent Bunny's kitchen.
It was most unusual. Millicent Bunny had never seen anything quite like it before. Beams of light that were usually such gentle and kind
guests in her burrow came leaping in through her kitchen window and lay around in a muddle on the floor.
No sooner had Millicent Bunny said good morning to them than they rushed straight out of the window again and down to the other end of the meadow'
tripping over the place where the ducks had nested, and throwing themselves in exhaustion onto the ground. This was very strange behaviour indeed.
Millicent Bunny hag never known a day quite like it. All this rushing around, it was no wonder that the sunbeams were exhausted.
Millicent Bunny had some breakfast while she thought about it all. She looked out of the kitchen window, and saw that at the bottom of the meadow
the sunbeams were stirring again, so she tidied away all the breakfast. She washed up the plates and put them back in the shelves.
She washed her favourite mug, which her firend the sun had drawn circles around. She washed up the glass of milk that the sun had sparkled in,
and when everything was neat and tidy, she went to her favourite chair by the window, looked out into the meadow and wondered what she was going to do.
Millicent Bunny has a place where she knows there is a wriggle. It is in the middle of her back. Millicent Bunny knows she has a place foir a wriggle
in the mddle of her back. She knows it, and as soon as she knows it, there it is. And here it is. This is quite a warm wriggle. It
starts where it is starting, and that is in the middle of Millicent's back. Then the wriggle runs all the way down Millicent's back, until it bounces into her tail.
Millicent Bunny very much wants to meet a wriggle in her tail, and she tries very hard, and that is usually when she finds again that she is lying on her back
and her legs are lying on top of her, and the wriggle knows this.
The wriggle will wait in Millicent Bunny's tail just long enough for Millicent to come and look for it. And here she is now. Then the wriggle runs
all the way along her back, all the way past the place where Millicent knows the wriggle is. And as soon as she knows it is there, there it is.
A new wriggle runs down her back all the way to her tail, and if Millicent Bunny is not lying on her back, now she is, and her legs are lying on top of her.
And the old wriggle runs all the way up her back, between her long brown ears, and down onto her soft pink nose, and that is where it stays.
That is what the new wriggle does as well. Millient Bunny has a place in the middle of her back where there is a wriggle, and as soon as she knows that,
there it is, and it is in her tail and her soft pink nose, and running between her long brown ears. Millicent Bunny tries to catch it with her furry
front paws. With her furry back paws. And she never does. She knows it is one and one. And often she is lying on her back, and her legs are lying on top of her
when she most knows one and one.
Millicent Bunny spent some time thinking about this strange behaviour. She was not at all used to sunbeams that bounced right through the window
and left themselves in a muddle on the kitchen floor. Then with barely a breathless pause to say hello, bounced straight out again.
While she had been sitting in her chair they had done it four more times, or perhaps even more than four, because Millicent Bunny wasn't sure.
She liked to count things so that she always ended up with four. That way whatever it was that she was counting she could have one for each
of her dainty furry paws, which was by far the best way of doing things.
And Millicent Bunny finally arrived at the same place as a Decision, at almost the same time as the Decision arrived, though to be quite fair,
the Decision had arrived first and had been waiting for her to catch up. She was sure the Decision would know what to do.
The Decision could think a little faster than Millicent Bunny, because that is how decisions like to be. Millicent bunny thought a
little slower than the Decision, because that way she had time to say good morning to the sun all over again on the way. And finally they both
arrived at the same place, which was Millicent Bunny's front room. They arrived at the same time, which was a little before coffee time, and
they introduced themselves to eachother.
Millicent Bunny and the Decision had a cup of coffee together, and some toffee biscuits that the sun had sparkled on yesterday, but which were
still quite jolly, and when they were finished they held eachothers hand and went to the front door, which had been moving up and down a little all this time.
The Decision opened the front door, and Millicent poked her small twitching nose outside to see what there was to see.
Without so much as a hello the door jumped wide open. Millicent's mouth jumped wide open, and I rthink perhaps she swallowed the Decision,
because it was never seen again, which is why you should never leave your mouth open unless you are using it for something especially.
It seemed to Millicent that Chaos had decided to arrive. She allowed that to happen for a while. She had nothing better to do with the while
anyway. She looked for the Decision for a little while, but it had come all by itself, and now it seemed to have left the same way.
The decision seemed to have gone completely. In fact she couldn't even remember what it had looked like, it was so completely gone. She
made a special effort to close her mouth in case any of the Chaos tried to creep in there for a sleep. The teacups rattled and the plates fell from the dresser.
Breakfast was dancing around, first on the dresser, and then on the table, and then on the floor, and Millicent Bunny danced after it.
Her burrow nestling between the toes of the giant tree was wriggling in time to a song of shrieks and creaks sung by the giant tree and its friends.
Millicent Bunny didn't know what to do. To be quite fair Millicent Bunny wasn't all that bothered. Chaos was doing a wonderful dance. It
was better than anything Millicent had ever danced herself, and she jumped straight down onto the floor to try and learn it. She spent all
morning learning the brand new dance that chaos was teaching her. She was especially pleased with the bit where all the cups and plates and
saucers mixed themselves up with all the food, and looked as though they were going to jump straight into the oven and cook dinner.
Millicent thought that would be a very good sort of decision for them to meet, and she wondered where she might find such a Decision so
that she could introduce them.
As it was, every time the plates jumped towards the oven, the oven would shut its door, and they would all have to jump back again.
Once the morning had been danced all over, even the Chaos was getting a little sleepy. Millicent Bunny was tired as well, so she
climbed back into her favourite chair, drank the spare cup of coffee she had made for the Decision before she remembered that the Decision had
gone, and she did some thinking.
First of all she tried to do some thinking and some embroidery at the same time, but they got terribly tangled together, and so she had to
put the embroidery down. She was making a nice restful pillowcase for her bed, and she didn't want any thinking tangled up in it or she would never get to sleep.
Millicent Bunny doesn't quite know how things are, but she is sure that they are. That is what concerns her. She knows that things are, and
as far as that goes she is happy that they should be. She is only concerned when she does not know how it is between her and things. But
she knows they are, and sooner or later that is how they are. So she is not concerned now.
Millicent Bunny lives under a great big tree. When she stands by the tree, Millicent Bunny can easily tell that this side of the tree is this
side and that side of the tree is that side. Millicent Bunny knows all about questions and answers. Questions are very simple. Millicent Bunny
keeps all her questions on this side of the tree. All around the tree are piles of questions that she had stood on this side of the tree like one and one.
Answers are very simple as well. Millicent Bunny stores all her answers on that side of the tree. Millicent Bunny has never been to that side of the tree.
Every time she thinks she is there she discovers that it s this side of the tree again, and she knows this mostly because of all the questions she
finds there. So instead, Millicent Bunny is collecting answers in a glass jar onn her windowsill, and when it is full she will move to that side of the tree
and deliver them. And because Millicent Bunny is really quite happy that the jar never seems to be full.
In fact, every time Millicent Bunny looks into it, the jar seems to be empty. When she gets answers, Millicent puts them in the jar, but
somehow they don't seem to stay there, because every time she looks, the jar is empty. And one and one, so Millicent Bunny stays here and never goes there.
Millicent Bunny was a little puzzled where this Chaos had come from. It certainly hadn't been there when she had gone to bed. Neither had the wind, nor
the broken crockery, nor the moving burrow. It was all most perplexing.
Millicent Bunny was good at being perplexed. She had practised being perplexed in the springtime while ahe watched the petals fall off of the buttercups.
The more she had tried to put them back again the more they had fallen off. She had found that most perplexing. So had the buttercup.
She couldn't understand why the buttercups should try so hard to be beautiful, and then not try at all hard to stay together. She had a plate like that
now. It had been beautiful all of its life, and today while it was dancing it had decided not to stay togeter any more.
That had been most confusing as well.
Things were often like that, and Millicent Bunny was quite happy that it should be so. She had watched it happen, and she had seen the
way all the pieces had danced around on the floor, and she thought that a crowd of pieces dancing was really better than just one or two plates.
Millicent Bunny sat in her favourite chair and decided to think about it. She was sure that if she could only think hard enough it might
all start to matter just a little bit. So she did think. She thought very hard indeed. She thought so hard that she nearly forgot to have
lunch, but then she remembered again. So she had some lunch.
She was sure that all of this was happening. And she thought she was sure that there must be a Reason. And if there was a Reason,
Millicent Bunny thought she would invite it to lunch to find out what sort of a Reason it was. If it was a friendly sort of Reason, she would
be quite happy to watch it get on with whatever it was going to get on with, because she was sure it would be a nice thing. And if it was an
unfriendly sort of a Reason, or even a rather bothersome sort of Unreasonable, Millicent though that it might have become a little friendlier
after it had eaten some lunch, nand become quite a nice thing after all.
So Millicent Bunny went to the door to ask the Reason in for lunch, but when she looked outside all she could see were the meadow and some
leaves that had fallen off of her tree skipping along in the wind.
Millicent Bunny was going to catch them and put them back on the tree where they belonged. They were bright yellow in the autumn
sunlight, as the sunbeams chased them round and round the field. They reminded Millicent of the buttercups that couldn't be put back together
again, and she decided not to try. But Millicent couldn't see a single Reason. Reasons are like that. They attach theselves to things without
the slightest help. And then just when you go and look for them they run and hide. I*nstead you find something else altogether, and more often
than not it is something you weren't quite sure you had wanted to find, like a hole in your socks or a sharp thistle growing in the middle of
the meadow. Millicent couldn't find the Reason, but it seemed to be managing quite well without her help. And since it didn't need her help,
she decided to go out for a walk, and leave the Reason and the Chaos to dance to whatever tune the trees wanted to sing. So that is what she did,
and she completely forgot about the Reason.
She went to see Maximillian Bunny.
Maximilliam Bunny didn't know why the earth was moving. Maximillian Bunny had never even met a reason, and the more Millicent said about one,
and the way it had hidden from her, the more he knew he didn't really want to.
Maximillian Bunny had a way of walking up and down the floor of his burrow that made him look bigger than he really was. In fact, the more
he walked up and down, the bigger he looked.
Millicent Bunny wasn't quite sure, but she thought that if Maximillian went out for a really long walk, by the time he got home he would be too big
to fit in his burrow at all.
Maximillian Bunny thought that too, and so he was very careful never to go out unless he had something really important to do, and that seemed to be most of the time.
And because it was so imortant that he did it, he never had time to stop and talk to the buttercups or dance with the sunbeams.
He always had somewhere important to hurry to.
Maximillian Bunny was so full of his own importance he would not have noticed the earth moving unless he was moving it himself. He would certainly never
do that, in case he wasn't strong enough to move it back again.
Millicent Bunny looked into his eyes and saw that he was full to the very top with his own importance.
Maxillian had been thinking about the earth moving and how important that must be. He realised that if the earth was moving, it
must be because he was moving it. He simply hadn't noticed that he was doing it. Maximillian knew that he must be very important indeed if he
could make the earth move without realising it.
With a very loud bang, as befits a very important person, Maximillian Bunny exploded. He was so full of his own importance that there was no room for any more.
So he exploded.
And then he wasn't full of anything anymore.
Millicent Bunny was a little surprised, but Millicent Bunny had seen Chaos visit her at home in the morning, so she left Maximillian to sort out his own affairs.
Tucking her surprise into the little wrinkles that had appeared at the side of her mouth, she continued on her walk.
Maximillian was dancing through the sky, or the sky was dancing through Maximillian, one way or the other.
Maximillian Bunny had never danced very much, and he had some catching up to do, but Millicent thought that he had made a very good start.
She would come back another day and teach him how the plates had danced on the floor.
Millicent Bunny walked into the town. She could have hopped but it made her dizzy, so she walked.
She went into the coffee shop and she sat down by the window. The window of the coffee shop was not moving up and down, and outside she could see the
ground staying in the same place.
She watched the pigeons strut past, filled with their own importance, and because the earth here didn't seem to be dancing, the
pigeons were dancing for it. And when the pigeons gat tired of treading on eachothers toes, they flew up into the sky and danced with Maximillian.
Millicent Bunny watched the steam from her coffee slide up through the air to the ceiling, and as it got close to the ceiling it stopped so
that it didn't bump itself. Then it spread out into a thin warm blanket. And because Millicent Bunny had cold toes, she jumped up to catch it, and it
moved out of her way, and she jumped up to catch it, and it moved away.
By the time Millicent had completely not caught the blanket her toes were warm enough not to need it.
The pigeons had not come back, but all the cups and saucers in the coffee bar had jumped onto the floor and looked as though they were
trying to learn from Millicent the dance that she had been taught by her own cups and saucers.
They were very good at it. They didn't seem to need any more teaching, so Millicent went out to where the pigeons had been, and
practised treading on her own toes for a short while.
She wondered if she might be able to find some Chaos in the town to dance with, but the sun was going down, and the Chaos was getting harder
and harder to see.
Millicent Bunny caught the last rays from her friend the sun on the end of her long white wiskers, and she kept them there to guide her on her way home.
Millicent Bunny walked towards her house. She could have hopped but it made her dizzy, so she walked.
If you had seen Millicent Bunny walking home as the darkness cuddled tighter and tighter to her, you would have seen the last rays of
the sun bouncing up and down as they sat on the end of Millicents long white whiskers.
Millicent Bunny was walking home to see if the Chaos had managed to cook her dinner for her.
The sun was waving her goodnight. Her long white wiskers were bouncing up and down in time with her footsteps, and Milicent Bunny was
treading softly and gently. She made quite sure that the last rays of the sun were comfortable where they sat on her whiskers, and didn't get bounced off
onto the footpath.
As she walked she saw the sky dancing, and in the distance she saw the trees were dancing as well. Down between the toes of her tree, the ground was dancing
with her home.
Millicent Bunny had been quite pleased to meet the Chaos in her home. She had never met a Chaos before, or at least not one that visited
her at home. She rather liked it. Itwas good to have a friend like that who could drop in for a cup of coffee every now and then.
Millicent Bunny was particularly pleased to see the Caos because it looked as though it might be able to spend the night in the spare
bedroom. Then she could introduce it to her friend the sun in the morning. As she walked along she could see that she had another
visitor to her quiet burrow. She could hardly believe her eyes. It was a Reason! No sooner had she decided that the Reason was not going to show
itself to here than there it was.
Millicent was overjoyed. She had met Chaos and Reason in one short day. She liked having friends. She could see it was a very friendly Reason.
It was the wind dancing with the trees. The trees that she knew so well. The trees that were dancing. Dancing as the sky rushes past them.
Millicent Bunny watched the wind dance through the sky. She watched it dance with the tree branches. She watched as it skipped and reeled
its way across the meadow. She watched the trees waggle their roots in the ground, and her burrow wriggling.
She understood how the burrow felt. She was very ticklish as well. One day Maximillian had tickled her for so long she had rolled over on the ground.
Of course, that was before Maximillian became so very important. She could understand her burrow wriggling as it was tickled by the tree
roots, and all her cups and plates dancing from the fun.
Millicent Bunny was thoroughly enjoying herself.
So Millicent Bunny went to the middle of the little grove, and as the sun moved over to make room for the moon, Millicent Bunny danced the
day away, and with her danced the ground, and her home, and the trees, and even the wind and the sky.
As the moon came out, and the distant stars were twinkling their applause, Millicent Bunny could be seen dancing. And the darkness
wrapped itself close around her and kept her warm until dawn.
Millicent Bunny rather likes the autumn, and she rather likes having all the leaves to dance with.
She misses her friend the sun in the mornings but he has a lot to do now in other places, so he kisses her on the nose every day and then
moves on, and he never has time to stay for dinner. He says he will come back in the spring.
Millicent Bunny has a new friend. He is very quiet. He hardly says anything, but he sits and he keeps her company. He lets himself in when
he is least expected, and he always stays to dinner. And if Millicent Bunny spills the milk, or trips over a Chaos, he will be there to share
the laughing with her. And since he didn't seem to have a name, Millicent Bunny has called him Happiness, and she says she is very pleased
to know him.
So now, when Millicent Bunny finds her walls are moving, and her door is moving, and her window is moving, she goes out from between the
toes of her giant tree and into the grove. And there, in the sun or in the moon, she dances among the trees, and all the things that are
happening carry on happening.
Millicent Bunny is skipping lightly, smiling lightly through her long white teeth as her long white whiskers bounce up and down.