Scream of the Bunny

For us it was always a typical Easter. If money permitted, there was a new dress, in organdie or dotted swiss in a pastel color, with the scratchy petticoat that made your skirt stand out prettily, but which itched like the dickens and you were forbidden to scratch in public, so you just squirmed, so it looked equally as bad. A little spring hat trimmed with a flower and/or a wide green or pink or yellow ribbon was de rigueur in those days, with an elastic band under the chin to keep it on. The elastic itched, too, which added to the dress-up ordeal. As you got older, you might have a little purse, and of course, for going to church, white gloves. Black patent leather shoes finished the ensemble; later you might be allowed to put on white sandals when you visited the family and the god-awful hat could go after you showed the family how cute you looked in it or posed for a picture. Church would be packed full of what my parents called "the three-time-a-year" crowd (Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter), and it would be a High Mass, which meant everything was sung except for the epistles, the Gospel, and Father's homily, so it was a long time to be sitting in a hard pew, especially for a small child.

When I was very small, if I got restless, Mom would give me her tube of bobby pins to play with. I would kneel backward on the kneeler using the pew as a table, and shape the pins into figures I imagined were Rocky and Bullwinkle (for some reason I can't fathom now, Bullwinkle only had one leg; I knew he was supposed to have two, but if I set up the bobby pin duplicate with two legs, it looked "funny" to me) and guided them through silent adventures.

After church came a visit to the cemetery, and then we went home for Easter dinner (usually a ham). Mom cooked while Dad read the Sunday paper and I checked out my Easter basket, which usually contained a hollow "Peter Rabbit" chocolate bunny and some plastic eggs with small chocolate eggs inside. In the pre-kindergarten era there was also a stuffed bunny every year, but the rabbits started to overrun the house, just like their natural counterparts would have. Eventually I ended up keeping only "Hoppy" (officially "Harold J. Rabbit"), who looked like a real bunny with brown coat and a white cottontail.

I particularly, however, remember the Easter I was in second grade because of something that happened at school. Our teacher was officially Mrs. Grady, who had both the second and the fifth grades, but she trained neophyte teachers during the year. While I clearly remember Miss Greenberg and Miss Okelowicz (I think that's how it was spelt) from fifth grade, I'm fuzzier on the second grade teachers. I believe I had one named Miss Fisher and she was the teacher that day...no matter.

Anyway, it was art class period and we were making Easter bunnies by cutting two long white ovals, as instructed by the teacher, and pasting them onto a big white construction paper circle, which was the bunny's head. Then we were to draw the bunny's face with crayons and maybe put some pink into his ears. Well, I was trying a new "technique" that would make the bunny's face look 3D, with round cheeks, and, to me, as a second grader, it looked pretty cool beside the other kids' rabbits, which had the more conventional round eyes, a button nose and a smile. I was usually the little "mouse" in school, the kid that knew the answers but didn't put her hand up because that meant I would have to speak in front of everyone, but this little artistic victory made me conceited, and I remember clearly bragging up my bunny. One of the boys next to me finally got sick of it, and reached out his hands, threatening to tear my bunny head into shreds.

I started to scream. I mean, not squeaking or squealing, but full horror-movie screaming.

Next thing I knew Mrs. Grady was in the room. I can't recall any longer whether she was tall or short, but she was stout and had short permed grey hair, and that morning looking down at me she looked taller than the Jolly Green Giant and the giant from the beanstalk put together. Her voice wasn't much kinder: "What is all this noise about? Do you know I can hear you screaming from down the hall?"

I think Miss Fisher or whomever was the teacher did explain to her about the bunny, but I was still sternly reprimanded about screaming about something so foolish. And, you know, to this day when I think about that scene, I still want to sink into the floor and disappear as I did at the time.