Over the Darkened Landscape - By Derryl Murphy Page 0,48
it out tomorrow. Instead, he started to flip through the Haywood books. There were fourteen in total, in varying conditions, all with illustrations on the cover and inside by someone named F.M. Davies. All of the pictures were of the creatures of the Green Green Woods, just as he remembered them. A distant memory cropped up, Michael sitting on the couch and wiggling because he had to pee so bad, until his mother in disgust had finally taken the book from his hands and sent him to the bathroom. He grinned as he remembered the look on her face.
Doubling up his pillow, Michael read Culpepper Frog’s Big Day in less than a half hour. Yeah, it was a book for little kids, but the message about conservation was actually pretty decent; how Culpepper and the other animals kept Happy Lake from being drained would teach kids a lesson in a way adults couldn’t.
He flipped to the front of the book, looking for information on when it had been published. On the inside of the cover he saw the words “This Book Belongs To,” and a child had scrawled his name on the line below, “Willy Thornton.” Curious, Michael picked up the other books and saw that all had once belonged to young Willy Thornton. One of them also had the date written in pencil under his name, 1938, in a more adult hand.
Tales of the Green Green Woods was next, short stories about all of the animals in the woods, and Michael skipped back and forth, reading some stories now, saving others for later. By the time he got to the end of the last story he was starting to feel pretty fuzzy. He read the last few sentences of one story out loud to try and keep awake, half-mumbling and once had even lost his place, then closed the book and laid it on his table, then shut off the light. All in all he felt pretty satisfied, despite his day at school.
He didn’t feel like he’d been asleep too long when the light came on again. Michael groaned and covered his eyes, then sat up, expecting that his mother was poking her nose in to tell him something of marginal importance. But when he managed to open his eyes to a squint he saw that the door was still closed. But he could hear something rustling around at the edge of his bed.
Before he could react to the noise a large rabbit poked its head up down by his feet, then with a huff it hopped up onto the covers, followed by an over-sized frog. Both were wearing clothes, the rabbit in tie and tails, the frog wearing a yellow waistcoat and a bowler hat. Except for the fact that they were three-dimensional and very real-looking, they were exactly as F.M. Davies had imagined them in his illustrations for the books: James Jackrabbit and Culpepper Frog, in the flesh.
Michael searched for but couldn’t find his voice. Culpepper Frog hopped over and sat on his pillow, then reached up and gently tapped him on the cheek. “You’re awake, kid. This ain’t a dream.” The frog’s voice was low and raspy, with something of a Chicago accent. And it smelled musty, which was a surprise; he would have expected it to have a moist odor, like a pond. Like Happy Lake, however that smelled.
James Jackrabbit hopped over and settled in on Michael’s legs, its weight feeling very real. “What’s your name, son?” asked the rabbit. It also had an accent, from New England, Michael supposed.
“Um, it’s Michael.” He wanted to jump out of bed and run, but with the rabbit sitting on him he was scared to move.
The rabbit smiled at him, an eerie, unsettling sight that looked even more unnatural than the fact that it was wearing tie and tails and was proportionally not at all like a real rabbit. “Nice to meetcha, Mike.” It—he—shuffled up and sat on Michael’s stomach. “I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, but as I remember my manners, I’m James Jackrabbit, and this is my compatriot, Culpepper Frog.”
Culpepper tipped his hat and also smiled. His teeth were flat and white, very much like a human’s.
“I’m . . . pleased to meet both of you,” replied Michael. He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but only managed a series of slight gasps, he was shaking so hard.
James Jackrabbit arched an eyebrow and smiled again, this time at Culpepper Frog. “He’s a