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| Hello, E. Whatsabotanicalgarden? |
One night in Kraków, after the Neighborhood Grandparents tucked themselves in and Michael started to snore, Szerykl reached in her magical way across the Atlantic Ocean and said hello to E.
“I’m in dance practice,” said E, and she leapt with pointed toes to show. “Let’s talk super fast.”
“What’sabotanicalgarden?”
“Forget super fast. Slow down.”
“What’s a botanical garden?”
E knew this one, because once
Sheri and Michael had brought her to the botanical garden in Baltimore. She was
smaller then, and Michael had to lift her to his shoulders so she could see the
orchids. She took home a Panda Plant that day, which she still cared for and loved.
Szerykl said, “I only wonder, because usually rabbits aren’t welcome in gardens. But if you say I have to keep watch over the Neighborhood Grandparents, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to the gardens, though the police might find me and interrogate me and send me all the way back to Baltimore!”
In secret, Szerykl wanted to go back to Baltimore. The Rabbit Prince’s prophecy required a gathering of amber drops “from dragon, from knight, from dwarves and mice.” None of those sounded pleasant. Dragons especially, with their hot, stinky breath. Who knows? Maybe mice were worse.
“Mice are probably worse,” said E, who recalled that time in Baltimore when Michael told her about putting his foot in his boot and his toe nudged something soft, which he thought might be a sock but turned out to be a …
“Don’t say it!” said Szerykl.
“… a dead mouse!”
“That’s goober-doober gross.”
“You need to stay with them,” said E. “That was our deal. Now, excuse me while I pirouette.”
So the next day, Szerykl snuggled into Sheri’s coat pocket and away they went to Kraków’s Botanical Garden. And it turned out the garden was almost as magical as Szerykl herself.
There grew a cherry tree and an oak tree, each about 230 years old. Roses bloomed in the cold fall air. A gingko tree glowed more yellow than the sun. In the hothouse, orchids showed off their rainbow colors, and cactus brandished spines that would poke out even a dragon’s eye. Szerykl saw lily pads grand enough to carry one hundred magic rabbits across a pond! When she saw the meat-eating plants, all gooey and poisonous inside, she asked, “Are you related to Gummy the Spider?”
“They aren’t,” said a voice behind her, so sudden that she startled and hopped into tall grass on a slope nearby. When she turned to see who spoke, there sat in the grass the Rabbit Prince, the slope’s yellow wildflowers seeming to crown his head.
“Ready to gather the first drop of amber?”
“Is it here?”
“You’ll find the first amber drop many, many miles from here,” said the Rabbit Prince. “Days of hopping! At the feet of the Stone Knight of Łysa Góra.”
“Wissa Goora?”
“Yes! There is a knight who lived long ago but was turned to stone. He kneels at the foot of Łysa Góra, the Bald Mountain, where witches once flew and danced–pirouettes and what not–and perhaps still do! At the foot of that mountain kneels a knight made of stone. There’s an interesting legend about him.”
“A LEGEND? Neighborhood Grandpa loves legends.”
“You tell him there is a legend, and then maybe he will take you to the Bald Mountain, and there, at the foot of the Stone Knight, you’ll find the first drop of amber.”
“So I don’t have to start with the dragon?”
“No, the dragon is last.”
“Good, because the dragon scares me.”
“Oh, there’s something even scarier after the dragon.”
“…!”
The Rabbit Prince looked left and right in that nervous way rabbits do. He shivered, and his bright whiteness dimmed as if shadowed, as if the sun had vanished behind a dark cloud. He whispered:
“The Ghost of the Mountain Rabbit!”
Just then, the Neighborhood Grandparents called Szerykl’s name, saying it was lunch time, and that the garden’s café had high quality zesty greens for rabbits. Szerykl invited the Rabbit Prince to join them.
“It’s so nice, Szerykl, that you’ve met a friend,” said Sheri.
What the Rabbit Prince had said about Michael was true. As soon as he heard about the Stone Knight legend, Michael said, “Let’s go catch a bus!” That bus ride saved Szerykl from a lot of hopping. Soon enough, she and Michael and Sheri found themselves at the foot of Bald Mountain, hiking toward a bright autumn forest. As they walked, they searched and searched for a knight made of stone. They passed a parking lot and a bathroom. They climbed the Bald Mountain, following a rocky road that kings and common folk had walked for centuries to worship at a monastery on the mountain’s peak. As for witches? Well, most woods are home to birds, squirrels, chipmunks, even rabbits. But on Łysa Góra no critters appeared except for toads, so…
“Was it a witch who turned the knight to stone?” Szerykl asked.
“Maybe,” Michael said. “The legend doesn’t say who did it, only that it was his own fault. He came to worship like everyone else, but he thought he was special as unicorn poo and deserved four-star treatment. When he heard the monastery bells toll, he was all, ‘They know I’m here! That’s the signal. Now comes the four-star treatment I deserve!’ You know how that sort of story goes: dark clouds, lightning and whammo, he’s stone.”
“So, the lesson is: don’t think you’re so special as unicorn poo,” said Szerykl.
“They say he still moves toward the top of the mountain,” Michael said, “but only at a distance of a grain of sand each year. And when he reaches the monastery the world will end. So, no hurry.”
By this time, Sheri and Michael and Szerykl had reached the monastery, toured it, enjoyed hot cocoa in the cafe, and bumbled and fumbled down the rocky road back to the foot of Bald Mountain.
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| The Stone Knight! (bathrooms to the right) |
And that’s when Szerykl saw the knight. There he was!–kneeling between the public bathroom and the parking lot and a souvenir stand that sold plastic knight swords and toy witches’ brooms. They’d walked right past him, but it wasn’t like he was a big deal there by the toilets. He was kind of a lump, like kneeling in the rain and wind for hundreds and hundreds of years had worn him down. Which it had.
“It’s you!” she cried.
“Don’t fuss,” he said. “It’s not like I’m unicorn poo or anything. That’s been made clear.”
“Yes,” she said, “but the Rabbit Prince tells me you’ve got a drop of amber he needs so that he can become King of Polish Rabbits.”
“Look down at my knees,” said the knight, and Szerykl noticed many smooth colored drops embedded in the rock there. Some glowed green and others blue, but only one looked made from honey.
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| The Stone Knight, on the move |
“There’s one that’s amber,” she said, “but it’s stuck.”
“Wait a sec, wait a sec,” said the knight, and he grunted as if pushing a boulder up a hill. At his knees the stone creaked and groaned, sounding about to break apart, and when the knight shouted, “Heave!” up popped the amber drop. Szerykl caught it in her forepaws.
“Did you just move one grain of sand forward?” asked Szerykl. “I couldn’t tell.”
“I did. It’s a lot of work. I weigh a ton–literally! But I thought a little shudder might set free the drop of amber. So there you go. Glad to be of service! Now, travel home, little magic bunny. As we say in Poland, Szerokie Drogi! Wide Roads!”
On the bus ride back, Szerykl studied the drop of amber. When she looked past the drop’s surface, she could see folds and creases and even smaller drops inside the drop. A whole amber world existed inside that one drop of amber.
“Why must it be amber for the Rabbit Prince?” she wondered. “Why not diamonds or turquoise or rubies?”
She decided that when they got home, she’d ask the Neighborhood Grandparents, and if they didn’t know she could ask the Rabbit Prince. For now, though, she tucked the amber drop under her smock, snuggled into Michael’s travel bag next to his notebook where he wrote his secret thoughts and dreams and all the sentences he read and thought beautiful, and she dozed.
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| Szerykl studies the amber drop |
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