... okay, so i don't know if his name was "snowball" ... of my sister, susie, i'm sure, and, of course, as he was equally our sibling, alvin-the-wonder-dog is never to be forgotten, but of the rabbit i'll have to go with snowball until my dear sister corrects me ...
... now, being that a few years ago i confessed to her, i can tell the story of snowball's tragic demise ... with the rabbit tucked away in the elaborate chicken-wire home pa had cleverly constructed for him, we went to bed secure in the knowledge snowball was safe from all of alaska's nasty woodland predators ... little did we know that during the night the temperature was to drop even further than -40°f ... checking in on the rabbit as part of our morning chores, michael and i discovered that during then night he had died ... whether the animal expired from the cold, or first died from some other cause and then froze, either way he was frozen solid into a chunk of furry ice ... i was aghast, and, while i cannot remember the exact words, i said something to the effect, "mike ... susie's heart will be broken ... how do we tell her" ... my brother screwed up his face even more than his normal visage, a sign i recognized as an indication he was using all of his brain cells at once ... "quick ... go over to the firepit and get me a skinny piece of wood" ... returning with a length of kindling, i handed it to him ... he then proceeded to use the wood as a lever with which to rip an opening in the chicken-wire side of the cage ... "there, now hide this piece of wood under the pile" ... when i got back he had snowball in hand ... i noticed that he'd closed and latched the cage door ... "okay, after we get rid of him our story is that during the night he must've decided he wanted to join his relatives in the woods, got it" ... he made me repeat the story several times, then we went inside to bring the news of snowball's escape to my sister ...
... later, outside, huddled around the cage, i remember when the thought came to her, "but ... but, what if some animal broke in and took snowball" ... mike's response was slow, measured, as if a thought that had just come to him, "oh, no ... i don't think so ... see how the wire is bent outwards ... there's no way that could happen unless snowball did it himself" ...
... susie was sad, of course, but not heartbroken ...
... and, reading this even after all these years, she will most likely again be saddened ... that's susie, my little sister ...
... and, reading this even after all these years, she will most likely again be saddened ... that's susie, my little sister ...
... finally, sworn forever to secrecy, never can i say what happened to the corpse ...