"So where do you want me to start?" Dusty asked.
"At the beginning," the others chanted in unison.
"Well, take a seat," Dusty said, as she motioned them to sit on the two logs.
Softy and Eliza sat on one log, and Augusta and the highway patrolman on the other. Dusty took a deep breath.
"I was born in Dustland and lived there all my life. My mother was a fanatic about dirt. If there was even one dust bunny anywhere in the house she'd go postal. One time I was grounded for a week because of one bunny she found under my bed."
"I felt sorry for the little critters, so I started a secret sanctuary in the attic. My friends would come over and we'd go to the attic and light candles and watch the bunnies dance as the wind went through the thin cracks in the siding. We'd ooh and awe and have a great time, until . . ."
"Until what," Augusta asked.
"Shh!" said the highway patrolman. "Let her tell the story as she sees fit."
". . . until my mother came up to the attic one day to tell me that she was going out. We were so engrossed with the bunnies that we didn't see her in time to hide them, and she was furious when she discovered that we'd been praying to the little creatures."
"Praying" Eliza asked.
"Shh!" said the patrolman.
"Yes, praying. We had kind of made up a religion, believing that the bunnies represented the second coming of Christ. Mom said that she had never heard of anything so infantile or so ridiculous, and that there was no way she'd live with dust bunnies."
"What happened then?" The patrolman asked.
"Shh!" mocked Augusta.
"She went down stairs to get the vacuum. We heard her muttering as she was coming back up the stairs with a vacuum hose following her, "I'll suck up those bunnies and give them the surprise of their lives."
"By that time, we were so committed to the bunnies that we would have given our lives to save them. So we closed the door to the attic and laid down against it so Mom couldn't come in."
"You never told me this," Softy said.
"Shh!" said the patrolman.
"You never asked. Mom couldn't deal with her kid defying her wishes so she gave one of her many ultimatums, saying if I didn't open the door in the count of five, I'd no longer have a mother."
"What happened then," Softy asked.
"Shh! said the patrolman.
"I wanted to open the door. I could hear how angry and hurt she was, and knew that I'd be better off with a mother, even if she didn't believe in sanctity of bunnies."
"So?" Augusta asked.
"Shh!" said the patrolman.
"My friend Joan got her hair stuck on the key and couldn't move to open the door. We screamed through the door that we couldn't open it right away. Mom yelled back that she knew we were faking it, and that she knew we were now hiding the bunnies, and that she was leaving and she'd never coming back. Our choice was to cut off Joan's beautiful blond hair, or to lose a mom. We looked for a scissors as we heard mom go back down the stairs."
