The rabbits that didn’t want to eat

“Come eat your food,” Mommy Rabbit calls.

Mommy Rabbit has tasty carrots for her rabbit kids and rubs her paws dry on her apron. Today she has a surprise for them, because everyone who eats all his food will receive a piece of juicy watermelon for desert.

“I’m sick and tired of carrots,” says Emma. “I want spaghetti.”

“I’m not hungry,” shouts Nina. “I want chocolates.”

“Carrots make me vomit,” shouts Eldrid. Just like this, every rabbit has an excuse. Even the smallest rabbit baby, Millie, who doesn’t even have teeth, presses her lips together not to eat.

Mommy Rabbit feels terribly sad. “You are never going to grow and become big if you don’t eat,” says Mommy Rabbit. “There are many rabbits who have nothing to eat and who have to look on the farmer’s lands for food. Just remember if the farmer sees rabbits on his lands, he shoots them, because he doesn’t want them to eat his vegetables.”

Mommy Rabbit then tells them to go and sleep, so that they can grow, because sleep also lets you grow. Mommy Rabbit then calls all the little animals in the veld and invites them to eat the delicious carrots and watermelon. Ellie Squirrel, eats so much that his tummy feels as if it is going to burst. Stinkie Mongoose even eats the leaves of the carrots. When all the little animals have enough, they sing the loveliest song to thank Mommy rabbit.

They sing:

Thank you Aunty Rabbit

Thank you thank you so much

Our tummies are full

And our hearts are happy

Because we had delicious food

The rabbit kids then awake because of the song and shyly get up.

They were very sorry for not wanting to eat their food and embraced Mommy Rabbit and told her how sorry they were.

From that day on the rabbit kids sat at the table even before Mommy Rabbit called them and each day ate all their food. When they prayed for their food, they also thanked Mommy Rabbit for giving them each day such tasty food.