The rabbit who became real

I cannot say for sure how rabbit was made, but I do remember the day we first met.

A present from my brother to one of our newborn twin girls, rabbit joined our family under a cloud of ordinariness.  We did not even think to give him a proper name.  In fact, ‘Rabbit’ was as much as we could muster, as we added this fluffy, white bunny to the already significant collection of furry friends at the end of the cot.

And that was it, or so I thought.

With hindsight, of course, I now realize that strange things happen in a children’s Nursery; including a kind of natural selection by which each of these apparently lifeless animals ‘fight’ for the attention of their young masters. 

Some will, of course, compete on the strength of their moving parts.  Whether powered by batteries, or a more traditional ‘wind up’ mechanism, these are typically the big hitters on Christmas day.  By early January, however, when the batteries are dead and the wind up mechanisms have been wound up once too far, it is clear that they are not in this for the long term.

The same can be said, perhaps, of the life-size Crocodiles and Panda bears that are brought home from the visiting fairground attractions by soon-to-be dads on lazy, summer nights.  The high impact soon gives way to the practical inconvenience of their sheer size.

Rabbit was not a big hitter.  He had neither moving parts, nor was he, by any stretch of the imagination, oversized.  He was simply a rabbit shaped gift, with a bell in his tummy.

As the weeks and months turned into years, a magical connection grew between my daughter and her rabbit that was difficult to explain.  Like it or not, Rabbit found himself dragged around the local park, dropped in puddles and stuffed into the back of the pushchair everywhere we went – and not without consequence.  Over a period of five years, his fur wore thin and patchy, his head fell off at least three times, and he finally lost one of his legs – replaced by a prosthesis, donated by a genetically compatible rabbit found in one of the other corners of the Nursery.

None of us could remember how Rabbit came to mean so much, but by the time my daughter was five it was impossible to imagine her without this unlikely hero and companion.

Running into the house after another day at school, the ritual is always the same; her hat, coat and shoes are thrown off and left strewn across the floor – such is her excitement and haste to be reunited with her Rabbit.  Within minutes she is back in front of the TV, cradling her most treasured possession in her arms. 

And Rabbit is clearly as content as she is.

But lest you think that I am speaking now of that stuffed bunny with a bell, I should perhaps explain that this best friend is now what we tend to call Real.  Somewhere, somehow, a transformation occurred.

And that’s precisely how the story goes.

“What is REAL?  asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying near the Nursery fender… “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up?” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become.  It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shappy.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”