Jolly lived with his parents in a burrow in Mr Kenny’s garden. Mr Kenny was a kind man. He did not kill rabbits. He grew cabbages and carrots, tomatoes and beans. He knew that the rabbits stole some of his vegetables. But he did not mind. After all, there was enough for him!
Jolly’s parents had told him, “Nibbling a few vegetables once in a while is fine, but you must not stuff yourself; nor must you destroy any plants digging them up. And don’t go when Mr Kenny and his dog are out there!”
Jolly was quite a good little rabbit most of the time. But he had one problem. He sometimes became a bit greedy and didn’t know when to stop eating.
One evening, he looked out of the burrow. There was no sign of Mr Kenny nor of his dog. So, he decided to take a look at the vegetable patch. Papa and Mama Rabbit had gone to get a few things from Farmer Hudson’s farm. They would get back late and he was really feeling very hungry.
He hopped towards the patch and sat in the shadows for a few minutes. “Yes, it’s safe,” he thought, looking around, “And the carrots will be juicy and nice!”
Jolly began to dig into the carrots and had a great time eating them. He was quite full after eating five of them, when his eyes fell on a basket of carrots. “Mr Kenny must have pulled them up today!” he thought, “Wow! This will be a feast!”
And the naughty little Jolly began to eat the carrots in the basket. Suddenly, he heard a sound. “Oh, no! That’s Mr Kenny’s dog barking,” he thought in dismay, “I had better run!”
Jolly wriggled out of the basket and tried to hop and run as fast as he could to his home. But it was very difficult to run fast.
“Where can I hide?” thought poor Jolly. He saw a pipe lying near by and ran into it luckily. Mr Kenny’s spaniel came sniffing after him and found him. But he was too big to reach Jolly. After some effort, he went off.
Jolly tried to get out, but found he was stuck in the pipe! “Help! Papa! Mummy!” he called frantically. They were just returning from the farm and heard him.
They soon found Jolly stuck in the pipe. Papa pushed from one end and Mammy pulled from the other. Finally with a POP! Jolly came out and the Rabbit family went home. Jolly would never overeat again!
