By Buny

With Ashley P. Taylor

For my grama, Grama. She’s also name Sandi.

I was so mad cuz Mama had carrots for dinner and she didn’t share. It’s
weird cuz I can’t really eat stuff cuz I don’t have any teeth but I can
pretend eat stuff. So I want carrots even though I can’t really eat those,
and I get really mad when the other animals eat stuff I like and don’t
share.

Just so you know, my favorite food is carrot cake. And salad. That’s like
all I eat: salad and carrot cake. You know, bunny stuff.

I was born in China cuz that’s what it says on my tag but I don’t know
Chinese. I don’t member China either. When I got dopted I was in New York
in the hospital. Or the orphanage. I guess it was the orphanage, in the
hospital. Anyway Grama says she saw me there and thought my mama would like
me so she dopted me. She had to pay money though: like $22! I don’t think
that’s how doption’s sposed to work, cuz it’s not ethical and stuff, but
anyway that’s what Grama did. See my mama was in the hospital in New York
and that’s why Grama was there (she usually lives in Kentucky, in the
countryside). I don’t know. Sometimes I think my mama was in the hospital
cuz she was having me, and sometimes you know they cut the mamas open to
get the babies out and stuff, but then other times I think I was dopted, so
Mama musta been in the hospital for something else. Maybe she had a pendix.
I don’t know. We were there really long, and we had to go back one time.

Oh, so I spell my name like this: B-U-N-Y. I’m not sure zactly how old I
am. I got dopted three months ago, in like April or something, but then I
was in China before. I’m pretty little. Grama says I’m precocious, I guess
cuz I can talk and stuff.

So you probly wanna know if I’m a boy or a girl. Well I’m not. See I’m a
non-binary bunny (that’s what my mama says). I’m purple, and that color’s
like special for the non-binary bunnies and the like ABCDQ bunnies and
stuff. I also have flowers in my ears. So I look up the difference between
the boy and the girl bunnies, and the thing is I don’t really have any
special parts or anything, other than my ears, so maybe that’s why I’m
non-binary? I never wet the bed or anything, but I don’t have any holes
down there anyway. So I don’t know if I can have a little baby bunny. I
don’t know if that would fit in there. And then what if they had to cut me
open cuz I don’t have the right holes and then I died and then the baby
bunny had to go to the orphanage in the hospital? I probably dopt a little
baby bunny. Or I could do it maginary, have a kid. I probly name it Sandi,
like my grama.

It’s kinda weird cuz I’m like both real and maginary. For zample right now
I’m on the table looking at the ceiling and stuff, and that’s like real,
but then at the same time I’m writing this book so I can get famous, and
that’s kinda maginary cuz I can’t really write stuff cuz I can’t move
without Mama. I tell her what to put and she writes it on the puter.

So when my mama got outta the hospital we went to her partment in Brooklyn,
and I was kinda noyed cuz I didn’t get my own room but I liked being near
Grama, she came too and she didn’t get her own room either. And then we
went to Kentucky for Mama to cuperate and stuff, and I was really cited cuz
Grama lives on a farm and there’s vegetables in the garden and the
countryside and stuff. And the fields and like real bunnies and stuff.

So one day in Kentucky I was hoppin around in the fields and I saw another
bunny, so I said hi, but that other bunny didn’t say hi back. I was mad so
I poked him on the shoulder and I said, “You’re a mean bunny!” And then you
know what? That other bunny like jump up on me and grab my tummy and he had
this thingy—I think that was a boy bunny—and he was like poking me with it!
I was really fraid. But I was also really brave, so I kick him and punch
him in the nose and I yell: “Don’t do that!” Then I ran away.

Yeah, and I saw the Kentucky Derby! Those horses musta gotten so wet
running around in the rain. If I did that my fur would get all wet, and I
don’t know if my insides would—see okay I’m gonna tell you a secret and you
can’t tell, but this one time I fell outta bed and I was fraid I broke all
my bones. So I went to the doctor and they did a X-ray and guess what? I
don’t have any bones in there! I’m just all fluffy.

Yeah, so now me and my mama live in the partment in Brooklyn, but we still
talk to Grama every day on the puter.

So I know I was dopted, but guess what? I found a ancestor! This one time
me and Mama were in this cemetery near the partment cuz Mama needed
exercise and stuff to get strong, and it’s pretty there with like trees and
stuff, and guess what there was this big stone with Bunney carve on it! So
I was really cited. But sometimes I get confused. Like I think that was a
human graveyard, but there was also bunnies in there, I guess. And I’m not
sure if my ancestors were humans or bunnies. My mama says she has this
cousin whose last name is like ‘Haase,’ and Mama says that means hare in
like Dutch or something, and hares are kinda like bunnies, so maybe her
like great-great-great-great-grama was a bunny. Maybe my ancestors are from
the Netherlands! But I’m from China. And also, my tag says “Made in China.”
Shouldn’t that be “Born in”?

My mama says I have to go to bed now.

*

I’m going to live with Grama. Mama is so mean. And rude! She’s always going
to the movies and the ballet and stuff and she doesn’t even ask me if I
wanna go too. She never brings me anywhere! And sometimes she pretend I’m
not there. Like this one time Mama and this lady come in, and I was sitting
on the laundry hamper, guarding (I’m also a guard bunny), and Mama and that
lady were like kissing and stuff. And then they got in the bed and they
were like rubbing up against each other and stuff. And then that lady slept
over and I didn’t even get to sleep in my own bed! I was so mad and I
couldn’t say anything cuz I can’t talk without Mama.

The good thing about writing this book is Mama has to pay tention to me.

*

Hey, so I’m a little fraid about something. I heard my mama tell Grama she
had a bad headache and felt all weird, and Grama said to go to the mergency
room if it got worse. And Grama was saying about the shunt not working and
the headaches and stuff and you know what I figured out my mama has water
on the brain and you know what you can die from that.

I like it when Mama hug me, even though she is a big meanie.

One time in April after I got dopted and Grama and me and everybody was in
the partment, Mama like rolled over in the bed and wouldn’t talk to anybody
and then Grama called the ambulance, and I got to go too cuz Mama needed
me, and we went back to the hospital again. I wasn’t too fraid, cuz the
hospital’s like mostly where I lived up till then, cept for China, and the
other thing is, I didn’t really think about fraidy stuff back then cuz I
was little.

But now I’m big so I think about it. If Mama not there and I can’t talk and
I can’t move or anything then like what does that mean? Mama already
bandons me when she goes away in the subway and stuff but she always comes
back and then I talk to Grama on the puter. What if Mama like never came
back? What if I had to do maginary all the time?

I want my grama.

*

“Hi, this is Grama,” as buny might have said. I’m writing here to add a
sort of epilogue to the story that my “grandbunny” wrote with help from her
mama, my daughter, Ashley.

As you’ve probably gathered, my child was not hospitalized for “a pendix.”
No, she went to the grave with her vestigial organ intact. Now I’ve said
it. How I wish this were imaginary.

My daughter was in the hospital because her shunt had stopped working and
she needed surgery. As Buny wrote, she was born with hydrocephalus, which
means her brain does not properly drain its fluid or regulate its pressure.
The shunt is a device that does both of those things. Did.

I “dopted” Buny for my daughter near the beginning of her month-long
hospitalization, in April; this was just after Easter. I spotted them, with
their purple fur and ears lined with floral cotton, in the window of the
hospital gift shop.

Buny was a great comfort to her mama. My daughter would squeeze her feet
when the nurses were drawing blood, when she had a headache, when doctors
were inserting and removing pressure monitors from her skull.

I guess you know the rest. We all went home to Kentucky. My daughter
returned to Brooklyn. And then, in August, the shunt broke down one last
time.

Let the record show that I liked talking with Buny. They were another
version of my sweet daughter. But you don’t tell your grandchild to run
away from home. So when Buny would say they wanted to come live with me, I
would always tell them they were welcome at my house but that I thought
they were better off with their mama.

Buny lives with me now. They don’t talk anymore, and I miss them. But even
more, I miss Ashley.