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©2010 Jennifer D. Porter

FIVE — RUE RESCUE

After Jack had yelled at Rue to run out from beneath the forsythia, Rue crouched in the grass. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Jack had leapt onto a stone wall and then disappeared.

A brown blur flashed by the corner of Rue’s eye, so he swiveled his ears. The blur made a lot of noise — panting, thumping, swishing. The blur flashed by again, so he turned his head.

A big brown animal sniffed at the ground as it ran. The animal charged right up to Rue. It had a large mouth with long pointed teeth and it smelled dangerous. Its slobber hung in strings from its chocolate-colored lips and when it whipped its head around, the strings slapped Rue and left wet streaks on his fur.

And that was when Rue remembered some of what Jack had said. He remembered, “Run as fast as you can and don’t play dead. Or the dog will get you.”

Rue ran but he did not run straight to the stone wall. He could not let anyone see his ugly splotch, so he kept his tail tucked down. Rue zigzagged this way and that way all over the yard. And the big brown dog zigzagged right behind him. Her warm, stinky breath poofing his fur and her teeth snapping at his tail.

The stone wall wasn’t anywhere anymore. Every bush and tree looked exactly alike and looked like the bush or tree he had just run past.

So Rue crashed under a pokey bush near a white picket fence. The dog ran to the bush but could only stick her nose under it. Every time she snorted, droplets of nose water sprayed all over Rue. He shook them off. He backed himself against the fence and as far away from her sharp teeth as he could.

 “Bark, bark, bark!” the dog shouted. She dug in front of the bush, dirt flying between her back legs and into the air. When the hole was big enough, she stuck her entire head under the bush and snapped her teeth at Rue.

Rue flattened himself against the fence and kept just out of her reach. Grrr!          

He closed his eyes and stayed very still for what seemed a very long time. If he moved even the tiniest little bit, the dog could bite him. Then he heard someone call his name.

It was Jack! Running down the driveway. Jack scurried straight up the corner of the picket fence, leapt across the top then slid down it and behind the bush. The dog pulled her head out, raced around to the right side of the bush and stuck her nose against his tail. Jack swatted her.

“Back off, Sugar!” he yelled.

Sugar yelped, pulled her nose back and barked again. She moved in front of the bush and planted all four of her paws in the grass. She cocked her head and whined.

“Rue,” Jack said. “When I say so, follow me this time. You must stay right behind me. An old friend of mine is going to help us, but I need your help too. Do you understand?”

Rue nodded. “I think so.”

Jack smiled. “We can’t let this devil be the end of us. Ready?”

Rue nodded again.

Jack raised his paws, circled them around his mouth then shouted, “Poe! Fly

©2010 Jennifer D. Porter

FOUR — AN ENORMOUS FAVOR

Jack had never rescued a baby bunny from a big brown dog before, so he wasn’t very good at it, at first. He scampered through the grass, his tail straight out behind him and across the Wilder’s blacktop driveway. He bounded up the stone wall that circled the flower garden in the center of the driveway then dropped down inside his hole. He never checked to see if Rue was right behind him.

Safe inside his burrow, Jack tried to slow his heartbeat with easy breaths of air. He rubbed each of his shoulders against the black, fertile dirt wall of his den then shook off and began grooming himself. “Well, that was a close call, little fellow.”

Only Rue didn’t answer. Rue didn’t make any noise at all. Jack whipped around.

Rue wasn’t there!                                          

“Oh, no!” said Jack.                                              

He scurried out of his burrow and onto the stone wall. Rue wasn’t in the yard, but Sugar was near the picket fence, in front of a bush. She had her nose and front legs flat against the ground and her tail wagged high in the air.

“Bark, bark, bark!” she said.

Sugar had Rue trapped against the fence! It was all a big game to that rascal, that devil of a dog, chasing the little animals and scaring them to death.

There was no telling when Mrs. Wilder would call Sugar back in. There was no telling what would happen if Sugar got her mouth on Rue.

“I must think quickly,” Jack said. “And act even quicker.” He scratched the fur between his ears. “Think quickly. Think quickly.” His entire body told him to run back inside his hole. “No, I’ve got to help the little bunny.”

A very shiny black crow was perched in an old oak tree — Jack’s old friend, Poe.

A long time ago, Jack had helped Poe get out of a very bad situation. It had happened in late summer when the August heat was so heavy most of the animals slept all day. Jack was searching the side of the dirt road for the perfect piece of gravel to aid his digestion.

From the tops of the trees that lined the road, a group of crows cawed. Caw! Caw! Caw! Four crows were perched together on a branch across from a smaller, very shiny crow.

“If you want to be in our gang, you got to kill one,” said the biggest crow to the smaller, shiny crow. “We got to know you’re tough inside.”

“But crows don’t kill. They scavenge,” whined the shiny crow. “It isn’t natural.”

“You’re a looser, Poe!” the other crow said. “You ain’t joining our gang if you can�

©2010 Jennifer D. Porter

THREE — BARK, BARK, BARK!

The heat spread from the center of Rue’s back to the tip of his tail then to the tips of his ears. The songbirds sang so loud it was as if they were in the nest with him. The sunshine made the insides of his eyelids bright orange. He coughed from a scratchy throat and tried to bury his head in Momma’s pile, away from the morning, but the pile was gone. The breeze floated along his fur and lifted its strands for a second or two. It fluttered through the leaves above him. He could not help but sniff and sniff the sweet smell the breeze carried with it. He tried to open his eyes, but the strong light hurt them.

“Momma,” Rue whispered.

He gave Momma a few seconds to answer, since she might just be hopping back. Then he said a little louder, “Momma? Can you hear me?”

Rue rubbed his eyes then opened one after the other. The sunshine made everything glow fuzzy for what seemed like forever. “Momma!” Then a little louder, “Momma!”

The crinkly, gray bark of the silver maple rose up into the light green leaves flittering so very high above him in the pale blue sky. A screech sounded from amongst the wispy clouds, and a chill raced along Rue’s spine and deep into his heart. “Momma!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

Rue took one step toward the tree. Their nest covering lay in wet clumps all around him on the bright green grass. Momma’s pile of grass and shed fur rolled with the breeze toward a pack of pokey bushes. “Momma! Where are you?”

Momma should have been back by now. She should be sleeping in their nest, snuggled close to Rue.

The outside world was utterly immense. Trees and more trees, acres and acres of trees, shrubs, grass. Trees dressed in flowers, trees of bright green and trees so tall they seemed to reach the sky. Trees with sharp needle branches and pinecones that could fall and squish a bunny so small. So many places Momma could be. How would he ever find her?

He slowly hopped away from their form beneath the silver maple. Everything around him had a different scent. Would he know her scent? Flowers, grass, moist dirt, earthworms, animal scents, bird droppings, humans. He stuck his nose in the damp grass and sniffed for her. It was too confusing.            

“Momma!” He sat back on his hind legs and stretched up off the ground, pulling his paws close into his chest.

He wondered if Momma could be underneath the wooden porch on the front of Mrs. Wilder’s white farmhouse with green shutters. It looked like a very good place to hide from a storm. A porch swing swayed and its chains creaked, but other than that, the house was quiet.

Rue began thumping his way over to the shadows beneath the porch. He stayed on Mrs. Wilder’s lawn and hopped toward the forsythia blooming in the flowerbed in front of the porch. The yellow-capped shrubs had spindly branches with pointed tips and some of those tips scratched at the ground.

Rue pressed himself as flat as

Rafe Colburn contextualizes what Jon Udell reframes about what Tim Bray mentions. The big question is how big is the new technology club that either 1) you and your friends are all a part of, or 2) you sort of hear about but don’t quite understand or see the need for? When I talk about Twitter to the library blogogeeks at CiL they’re usually saying “Yeah, love it, tweet me.” or “Not for me, thanks.” they’re not saying “Twitter? wtf?” However when I mention it at home, I have a hard time even explaining why I think it’s interesting, much less how it works.

As 2.0 apps are built on top of 2.0 apps and people can give conference presentations about making Twitter talk to RSS via a jabber server to do things with your library catalog, the gap between people who are just making the foray into email, or even blogs, and the digerati grows larger. Clubbiness can be offputting, regardless of which side of the club fence you’re on. Let’s not forget that we’ve got to be putting out feelers and explainers and breadcrumbs pointing outward to what we’re building as well as inwards.