Chapter 1: The Beginning
It was the last day of school and Margaret could not have been more excited. She was ready for a thrilling fun-filled summer. She skipped up to the front door of her house. As she approached her home, she noticed the newspaper in the bushes. She picked it up and looked at the first page. “Adventurers’ Cup opens for entry,” Margaret gasped. She stuffed the paper into her bag and continued on her way. This summer was going to be even more fun than she thought.
Margaret loved adventure. She had waited her whole life to be old enough to join the Adventurers’ Cup. The Adventurers’ Cup was a competition for all young bunnies over the age of eleven. They would compete for an adventurer’s job, and 10,000 dollars. But only the most accomplished of adventurers could win. Margaret felt pretty accomplished.
Margaret tripped and stumbled on pebbles and roots on the way to her house, but then she skidded to a halt outside her front door. She realized something.
“I need to tell Jason!”
She lived in a giant oak tree that Margaret and her mom and dad shared with two other families. Margaret’s family lived under the roots of the tree, and her best friend Jason, who also loved adventure, lived on the second floor with his family. On the top floor, in a tiny tree house, lived the grouch and his wife. The grouch was a scrawny old man who always yelled at Jason and Margaret, and his wife was a living angel, baking cakes and cookies and giving them to the other inhabitants of the oak tree. Margaret had no idea how these two were even in the same room as each other, but decided not to question it. All she knew is that she would kill for one of her neighbor’s cookies. But unfortunately, Margaret hadn’t realized that she was still skidding when she paused to think, and by the time Margaret noticed, she was already down on the ground, her head in the entrance way and the door wide open behind her.
Margaret held back a surprised yelp when she looked up to see her mom sitting at the kitchen table.
Without looking up from her book, she greeted Margaret. “Wow, that’s one way to enter our house.”
Margaret let out a groan as she got to her feet.
“You must be in a rush today.”
“Yeah, I have to go, Mom, adventure is waiting!” She dashed towards her room.
***
Her mom was about to ask where she was going on the evening of the last day of school, but Margaret’s door was already shut. Her mom let out a long annoyed sigh before taking a sip of her tea. Margaret was always up to stuff, and there was no stopping her. She looked down at her book. A jumble of weird words met her tired eyes.
“I should probably get the daily paper out of the bushes,” she said to herself. She loved the daily paper.
***
Once Margaret was safely in her room, she collapsed onto her bed, letting out a happy sigh. Finally she was home for the summer. She couldn’t wait for all of the adventures she would go on. But wait… wasn’t there something she was forgetting? An electric bolt of memory shot through.The newspaper, Jason, and Adventurers’ Cup swirled around in her brain. She almost slapped herself. Hadn’t she just told her mom that she was going to Jason’s house? She sat up. She needed to stop wasting time! She jumped off her bed and lunged towards the window. It made a loud creak, but she didn’t care. She leapt over the sill and landed on the grass on the other side.
Outside her window there was an old rotten fence separating them from the neighboring oak tree, and a thin narrow patch of grass was between her window and the fence. Hanging from Jason’s window, which was above her window, was an old half-rotten rope. Margaret picked up a small pebble and threw it at Jason’s window.
Jason, whose back was towards her, spun around and desperately shook his head, pointing at something behind him. Margaret, not getting the point, started pulling herself up the old rope. As she put her weight on it, it started to snap a little bit. Of course Margaret being Margaret, she didn’t notice or care. Jason continued to aggressively shake his head at Margaret. Margaret paused for a second, giving Jason a questioning look. Jason opened the window yelling something over his shoulder. Jason was about to tell Margaret to leave, but it was too late. The rope snapped.
Without thinking, Jason threw his paws out and caught Margaret just in time.
Margaret craned her neck to see what was happening behind Jason. Both of his parents stood in the doorway, backs to the window, arguing. Margaret now understood why Jason didn’t want her in his room.
“Jason, pull me up!” she whispered.
“No! My parents are right there!” he whispered back.
“If you pull me up, I’ll climb on to the tree branch above your window.”
Jason let out an exasperated sigh before using the last of his strength to pull Margaret up. He fell back onto the floor beside his bed and Margaret landed half-in, half-out right on the windowsill. At the sudden commotion, Jason’s parents turned around.
***
Jason shrank back as his parents’ eyes met his. “I-I can explain,” he stuttered.
“Are you okay?” asked his mother.
“What do you mean?” He pulled himself off the floor.
“Well, we heard a thud and saw you lying on the floor like you had hurt yourself.”
Jason jumped up, and looked frantically around the room.
“Jason?”
Jason snapped back to his parents. “Uhh… yeah I’m good.”
His parents seemed to decide it would be awkward if they continued their argument and left Jason alone in his room.
***
The moment had gone by in slow motion for Margaret. The slight turn of the grownups’ heads sent a warning jolt of electricity through her body. Margaret was not one to pay attention, and didn’t know a lot about Jason’s parents. But the one thing she knew for sure was that she was not to be seen sneaking into their son’s room.
Faster than the speed of light, before the two grownups had fully turned around, Margaret had already jumped up onto the outer ledge of the window, almost bonking her head in the process. Without looking back, she lunged towards the thick tree branch above Jason’s window. This branch had been a favorite of the two friends. They spent evenings after school laughing and chatting together on the branch. Plus, the branch was right below the grouch’s house. The extra cookies and treats given by the angel, known as the grouch’s wife, were good, but sometimes they got a bit unlucky with which bunny would notice them…
Margaret wrapped her arms and legs on the underside of the tree branch. She looked just like a sloth, dangling upside down above Jason’s window. She had to let go with one paw to make sure her long floppy ears weren’t noticed by Jason’s parents. She could pull herself up, but she needed to hang her legs down in front of the window in order to do this. So there she awkwardly hung, one paw on her head, and the other paw and her legs wrapped firmly around the branch.
It felt like hours before Jason opened the window. “There you are! How did you get up there so fast?”
Margaret honestly didn’t know. She pulled herself up into a sitting position on the branch and gestured for Jason to follow.
Without hesitation, Jason jumped out of the window and grabbed the branch. He swung back and forth for a while before doing his special move. He picked up so much momentum that he swung all the way around on top of the branch, sitting heavily next to Margaret.
“Nice one!” exclaimed Margaret.
***
Once Jason was next to her on the branch, Margaret whipped out the daily paper from her backpack and showed Jason the newspaper. It was a bit crumpled up, but he could still read the headline.
“Adventurers’ Cup opens for entry”
Below this headline was an application sheet. Jason gasped. The Adventurers’ Cup, how could he forget? He wasn’t quite as excited about it as Margaret was, but he would still love to join, and maybe even get to be on Margaret’s team.
“Don’t you understand, Jason?! This is our big moment! Finally, proper adventurers, and we might even win!”
Jason doubted that they would win, but he let Margaret sweep him up into the excitement.
“All we need to do is send in our forms!”
Oh right, the form. His dad had the newspaper, which meant that his dad also had the form. And who would even sign it? Definitely not his parents, and there was no way Margaret’s mom would agree. He was about to tell Margaret all of this, but paused, just noticing who was behind them.
***
The door of the grouch’s house flew open. He was with his wife, who was smiling sweetly as ever as if she did not realise she was walking with the devil. They stepped outside onto the front porch that had a perfect view of Margaret and Jason’s branch. Margaret, who finally realized what was going on, stopped her rave about the Adventurers’ Cup, and turned with a painfully fake grin towards the grouch and his wife. The grouch opened his mouth to yell.
Just as the grouch was about to launch into a lecture about no trespassing on other people’s property, his wife intervened.
“Why hello, my dearest children! Are you here for my famous double chocolate cookies?”
Jason and Margaret, who had completely forgotten about the grouch’s presence, eagerly nodded. The grouch gave a glare that could kill ten tigers on the spot, but his wife’s radiant joy blocked his glare. She led Margaret and Jason, who had already jumped off the branch and onto the deck, into the kitchen, leaving a very angry grouch to vent on the deck. When Margaret looked at him, she could swear she could see smoke coming out of his nose and ears.
The presence of the angel and her amazing cookies completely hypnotized her. Both Jason and Margaret walked into that kitchen like they were zombies seeing a delicious brain. No, make that Ten delicious brains.
As Margaret and Jason headed towards the counter where the delicious treats sat, the angel gently pushed towards the dinner table.
“Please sit down, you don’t want to upset your poor stomachs!”
Without thinking, Margaret dashed towards the table and immediately sat down and Jason did the same. The angel held out the tray of perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies. They had a perfect golden brown edge to them, and the chocolate chips were not so hard that they were raw, but not so soft that they were a gooey mess. As Margaret bit into her cookie, warmth and love spread through her whole body. Margaret and Jason gobbled up those cookies so fast that if you blinked they would already be gone. Just as they reached for another one, the grouch entered the house.
Margaret froze, paw hanging awkwardly. Jason paused from licking all the chocolate off his paws.
The grouch looked at the two kids and then back at the tray of cookies. “Daisy, get them out of my house!”
“B-but they just wanted—”
“No buts! I want them out right now!”
Margaret and Jason, who still desperately wanted another cookie, exited the house disappointed, both knowing not to mess with the grouch.
***
After they left, they decided to head over to Jason’s house, knowing it would be awkward to go back on the branch. Once they were safely in Jason’s bedroom, Jason asked the big question. “How are we going to sign up for this thing?”
“We’ll figure it out,” replied Margaret, who for some reason barely noticed that Jason had even spoken.
“No, Margaret, we can’t just figure it out, we need to do something now! Yes, the entry opens today, but it also closes today. You would’ve noticed that if you actually cared about things!”
Margaret completely missed the sharp tone to Jason’s voice and continued yapping about how excited she was. Jason made one last attempt.
“Margaret, if there is no plan, there’s no Adventurers’ Cup. And you know what that means.”
“No, I don’t know what that means. Why would I—”
“It means if you don’t do it this year you’ll have to wait a whole other year!”
Margaret gasped.
***
Margaret did not care about most things, because, well, she’s Margaret. But there was one thing that she did care about—and hated. She despised waiting. Waiting just felt like something that always got in her way, sometimes for what felt like no reason at all! And she was not letting this get in her way, especially when it came to her lifelong dream. She had to focus up if she was to achieve this goal. And luckily, Margaret was really good at making plans when it came to something she actually cared about (which was not most things).
“Jason, I know I’ve never asked you this before, but please talk about all the boring stuff that you’re so worried about.”
Jason opened his mouth but got interrupted.
“And yes, I am going to listen.”
“Okay, first of all, we need to figure out who is going to sign the applications.”
“Our parents, of course!” said Margaret like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Margaret did not notice Jason’s obvious annoyance.
“Margaret, do you honestly think that your mom is going to sign it?”
Margaret paused to think for a second. Oh yeah, right. Her mom hated that she loved adventure. She had always told her that running around and not avoiding danger would not get her anywhere in life. Margaret was so motivated and determined, she went deaf when her mom criticized her. At school, everyone called her the bravest bunny ever since she killed a whole bunch of rats with her Swiss army knife.That had been the week the school was renovating, and one of the workers took down the drywall to discover a whole bunch of rats. The rats could sense he had a very delicious rotten banana peel in his pocket, so they chased the poor bunny worker down the hallway. As the rats swarmed the classrooms, searching for more food, Margaret yelled, “rat attack!!!!” She pulled out her knife and brutally attacked them. The rest of the kids stood on their desks screaming.
Margaret got detention for unnecessary animal violence. But deep down, the whole class including the teacher were very thankful. Margaret wasn’t very surprised that Mom was not very happy that day.
Margaret finally came to a conclusion. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure my mom won’t sign it, but I can forge her signature.”
Jason gave a short nod and continued. “ The next thing is the fact that I don’t even have an application. My dad has the paper.”
Oh right, she forgot Jason might want to join. But now that she thought about it, she could probably use another person that loved adventure, and was her best friend on her team.
“Well, that one is easy, we steal that application!”
“You know how to do that?” asked a very sceptical Jason.
Margaret looked like she had a nasty insult thrown at her.
“Jason, I always have a plan.”