Rabbit in the Sky

“George, can you keep a secret?” Elizabeth asked. 

“Sure.”

“My big sister has been crying in her room a lot, I think that could be why there’s a drought, somehow her tears are using up all the water in our city.”

It was a ridiculous notion, but Elizabeth delivered it with firm conviction, like a real actress. That’s what she wanted to be when she became an adult. 

Elizabeth and George lay on the side of a grass hill together. From far enough, they looked like a pair of teenagers in love, even though they were only eleven. This was something Elizabeth said to George, she was always making strange observations like that. 

“She cried in dad’s house. I like spending the weekends with him, I guess she doesn’t,” Elizabeth went on.

George nodded. 

He tried to understand Elizabeth’s pain, but his parents lived in the same house. He was an only child, and he didn’t cry often, at least not at home. But school was different, it was loud and scary and it drained all his time and energy.

“She doesn’t like to come home much, my big sister, and sometimes she returns late at night.”

“Oh,” George said.

Up in the sky, he saw a cloud shaped like their class pet, Martin the rabbit. He knew Elizabeth would love it, but it seemed like the wrong thing to bring up at the moment. He hoped that she would see it too. 

“My parents think she joined a cult,” Elizabeth said.

“Did she?” George asked. 

Elizabeth watched a big cloud float over them. It reminded her of Martin the rabbit, but it seemed like the wrong thing to bring up at the moment. She hoped that George would see it too. 

“Of course not, well, kind of…”

“What do you mean?” George asked.

“You are clueless sometimes, George.”

“You don’t make sense sometimes.”

Elizabeth exhaled a quiet, exasperated sigh, just for show. She had already decided to pull a trick on George.  

“It’s not a cult, as much as it is a secret society.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth teased him. 

She loved George, and it was easy to tell he loved her too, but he never said anything about it. A boyfriend would suit her well. She was the most popular girl in school, after all. George was quieter, he didn’t have as many friends as she did, but that didn’t bother either of them. Besides, Elizabeth didn’t really like most of her friends, George liked the few he had. It all balanced out.

“Are you going to join too?” George asked.

“Yes.”

“Can I join?”

“Girls only.”

He looked disappointed, he only wanted to join because she was joining, which made her happy. 

“What type of stuff does the secret society do?” George asked. 

“Why do you care, I’m the one who’s joining, not you,” Elizabeth said. 

She was always making up stories. Her parents and teachers and friends discouraged it, they told her that it wasn’t cute anymore, so she stopped. She didn’t tell anyone her dream of becoming an actress, except George. He didn’t mind the stories, in fact, he usually believed them, or at least pretended to. Now, the boy picked a handful of grass and watched as the wind carried it away. He felt like that sometimes, unable to control his life. The grass blew to the side and hit Elizabeth’s face. 

“Sorry,” George said. 

“Don’t be. We shouldn’t have any grudges before I go off and join this secret society.”

“Why?”

Elizabeth was street smart, George was book smart. She envied him for that, envied that he could read a book at home in peace. George had always envied Elizabeth. He envied that she could talk to everybody and be in school all day without getting exhausted.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, “my sister says the initiation process is dangerous, even deadly.”

“Deadly?” 

“Yes.”

The sun began to descend from the highest point in the sky. It turned Martin the rabbit’s fur from white to orange. 

“Remember how we used to come here every day to watch the sunset, even during winter, during all the storms,” Elizabeth said, “back when we were just kids.”

George did remember, it was this little ritual that had kept him sane during the long winter. 

“We’re still just kids,” George said. 

“I guess, but at least one day we’ll be adults,” Elizabeth said. 

“That’s even worse than being a kid.”

Elizabeth found comfort by looking forward to the next step, George found comfort by dreading it. She looked forward to being an adult, he was thankful that he was still ‘just a kid.’ In that sense, neither of them would be happy until they were at their last step, where there was nothing to dread and nothing to look forward to.

“I’m going to be immortal,” Elizabeth said, keeping a straight face like a true professional. 

“Oh,” George said.

“That’s the dangerous part,” Elizabeth went on, “I guess it’s not deadly, that was an exaggeration. But once you’re immortal everything changes. You outgrow everyone around you, a decade turns into a minute, that’s what my big sister says.”

“How does she know? Your sister is fifteen.”

“She heard it from some of the other girls in the secret society,” Elizabeth said without missing a beat. 

“If all of this is true,” George said, “I don’t think you should join.”

“Why not?”

George blushed. He wouldn’t do it because it was way out of his comfort zone. To have to deal with change until the end of time, eventually without the support of his friends and family seemed horrifying. 

“This whole sisterhood organization seems like a scam, it might be dangerous, they might try to hurt you,” George said. 

“Who cares?” Elizabeth said. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. She wanted to see what George would say. 

“Oh.”

Martin the rabbit was now hidden somewhere amongst hundreds of other clouds. They were all orange and red. George didn’t say any of that to Elizabeth, it felt like the wrong thing to say at the moment. 

“There is one thing that can stop me from joining this secret society,” Elizabeth said.

“What?”

“A kiss. Girls who have been kissed are not allowed to join the secret society. Luckily, nobody has ever kissed me.”

“That sounds strange,” George said.

“I don’t make the rules.”

“Kinda sounds like you are making up the rules,” George said. 

She had to get other people involved. Maybe some of her friends would agree to form a fake secret society, make sure that George walked in on one of their fake meetings. Her friends would do it, but Elizabeth didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of them. Maybe she could tell George the other members were invisible? No, she wasn’t that good of an actress.

“Look, I don’t think you should join this secret society,” George said.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“I…” George began.

Speaking was in his comfort zone, kissing was not. He leaned in and kissed Elizabeth on the cheek anyway.  

Wow, not bad George, Elizabeth thought.

“Ew,” she said. 

“Oh,” George said.

“Just kidding, you had to do it, to save me from that secret society.”

Maybe Elizabeth was a good actress, after all. 

“What does that cloud look like to you?” George asked.

“A rabbit…”