THE RABBIT'S TAIL

There was once a young rabbit who was very sad.

He had two ears.

He had two eyes.

He had a nose and mouth. He had four fine paws. His fur was white and fluffy and soft - but he had no tail!

"Where's my tail?" he asked his mother.

"I do not know," said his mother. "You must have lost it when you were a baby."

The poor little rabbit grew sadder every day.

One day he said to his mother, "Do you think I can ever find another tail?'

"Perhaps," she replied. "And when you do, I will sew it on for you."

The little rabbit set off to find a tail. He looked everywhere. He looked in the grass. He looked under a rock. He even looked among the rubbish that had caught in the fence.

Then one day he found a soft, fresh green leaf. It looked very pretty.

The little rabbit took it home.

"Will this do for a tail?" he asked his mother.

"No, I'm afraid not," she said. "It would dry up and drop off."

So the little rabbit threw it away and went to look for something else.
The next day he found a feather.

"Will this do for a tail?" he asked his mother.

His mother said, "Let me see."

She tied the feather on to the little rabbit's bottom.

Little rabbit went out for a walk to try out his new tail. It was white like his fur. It felt soft and fluffy. The little rabbit began to sing. He was just beginning to enjoy being happy when a bird, sitting on the fence, called out to him,

"EEEeeech! EEEeeech! EEEeeech! ... Who do you think you are - a bunny bird?"

And the bird laughed so hard ("EEEeeech! EEEeeech! EEEeeech!") he nearly fell off the fence.

The little rabbit hurried home and looked in the mirror.

"I don't like it. It looks funny. And everyone laughs at me."

He put the feather on the shelf, saying to himself, "I must find something else."

The next day he went to the park.

There he saw a little girl. She had something on her hat. It was round. It was white. It was soft. It looked just like a ... a rabbit's tail.

"Little girl," said the rabbit, "what is that pretty thing on your hat?"

"It's a pompom," said the little girl.

"Oh!" sighed the little rabbit.

"I thought it might be a rabbit's tail. I am looking for the tail I lost when I was a baby."

"Poor little rabbit without a tail," said the little girl. "You can have my pompom."

The little rabbit laughed for joy. "And you can have my feather to put in your hat."

He hopped home and got the feather from the shelf. He gave it to the little girl and the little girl gave him the pompom.

Little rabbit hopped back home again as fast as he could hop ... to tell his mother he had found a tail. She sewed on the pompom, and little rabbit wore it for the rest of his life.