half expected that he would have run away, in fact a bit of her hoped that he had; but he was sitting up on the table with his little front paws tucked to his breast.
“Have you got the onions?” he asked.
“Onions?” she said. “No. Why?”
“Goodness gracious grips! No hare should be cooked without onions,” he said reproachfully.
“Oh, all right then,” she said, and went out into her garden and pulled up some onions. She left the back door open on purpose, but when she returned the hare was still sitting on the kitchen table.
She prepared the onions and put them in the pot. Then she picked up the knife again.
“And the carrots?” the hare asked.
“You want carrots, too?” asked the girl.
“Of course! Whoever heard of eating hare without carrots?”
So she went outside again and pulled up some carrots. This time she left the door open very wide. But when she came back, the hare was waiting.
She scraped the carrots and put them in the pot. Then she picked up the knife with a strangely heavy heart, and turned to the hare.
“Where’s the bayleaf?” he asked.
“Bayleaf?”
“Don’t you know about bay leaves? They give a wonderful flavour, especially to hare.”
“You insist upon bay leaf?”
“No, I don’t insist. But everyone knows that hare doesn’t taste its best without a little bayleaf.”
She lowered the knife. “I would get some if I could,” she said, “just to please you. But I can’t.”
“Why not? There’s a big bay tree just at the far edge of the forest.”
The girl shivered.
“I can’t go there. I’m too frightened.”
The hare looked into her eyes.
“If you’re frightened, don’t go,” he said. “I’ll be cooked without a bayleaf.”
“But you won’t taste your best,” she said. “You deserve the very best cooking.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want you to be frightened. Cook me and eat me now, and enjoy me as much as you can.”
And he laid his head on the table.
She put the knife down.
“I’ll go and get the bayleaf,” she said.
“You’re a brave girl. I’ll show you the way,” said the hare.
They went into the forest together, the hare running ahead, the girl following. It was very dark under the trees. At first she was almost too terrified to walk. But the hare danced along the path in front of her, and after a little while she found herself dancing, too.
At the far end of the forest she saw the bay tree. She saw the wide road. She saw the town in the valley, and the beautiful mountains beyond, and the sky beyond that. She saw the world she had never seen.
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