Tales of Peter Rabbit

Benjamin Shares His Tale (Part 2)

The older brown-furred rabbit led the way across the vegetation and past the wooden garden gates, through the small clearing and eventually to the familiar compound of Bea's house next door. The was still a few minutes of the setting Sun left, so Benjamin had no problem navigating his way there. Flopsy was all the more curious as to why he had brought her there, as the minimalistic little house had been more or less empty since renovation works had begun on it. Construction and building equipment were scattered about the front and main parts of the house, but the glass-room verandah that was formerly Bea's 'work station' for her artworks had been repaired earlier (after the old tree that housed the Rabbit's burrow had toppled and crashed into it), so it currently serves as a temporary storage space for some of her furniture and completed artworks until the renovation had completed.

Benjamin walked up to one of the glass doors and peered inside. Sofas, cabinets and other furniture were arranged in one corner of the verandah, while her artworks were neatly compiled conveniently in front of that particular glass door.

"Um... what are we thupposed to be looking at, Benjamin?" Flopsy asked, cupping her eyes as she plastered herself against the glass, trying to peer inside as well.

"That one, right there. You see that painting?" he replied, pointing his paw towards a particular portrait standing upright a foot away from the door that was partly obscured by a small footstool beside it. The portrait was one of Bea's rabbit paintings, only instead of the usual paintings of Peter and his triplet little sisters, this one was a painting of an old rabbit couple; the older male was slightly plump with a rather short stature and he sported a light blue coat and yellow vest with a tobacco pipe in his mouth; while the lady rabbit standing next to him was slightly taller and wore a bright red dress accompanied with an old-fashioned white bonnet on her head.

Flopsy squinted her eyes, trying to take a better look at the portrait. "Waith a minute, I don't think I've seen that painthing before," she noted.

"You didn't. Bea painted that one for me about a week ago before she set off for France and she kept it in here once she finished. So I supposed none of you would've seen it," Benjamin explained.

Flopsy stared harder at the picture. With what little daylight was left, she could just about make out the details of the rabbits in the portrait, and the more she focused on them, the more she realized that they both vaguely resembled a particular rabbit that she had known all her life.

"Benjamin, are those... are those your parenths?!" she gasped, turning towards him.

Benjamin gave her a single nod. "Yes, they are. Flopsy, meet my dad, Mr. Bouncer, and my mum, Ms. Jacqueline Rabbit."

The look of awe never left her face as she kept shifting her glance from the two rabbits in the painting to her cousin standing next to her. "Wow, Benjamin! You really do look alot like your father!" she laughed after a while, earning an agreeing chuckle from him as well.

Flopsy then focused her attention to the picture of her Benjamin's mother. She cocked her head to the side when she noted something else about her aunt. "Benjamin, is it juth me, or... does your mum also look alot like... my mum?"

"Yes, Flopsy, she does indeed. That's because my mum, Ms Jacquelin Rabbit, and your mum, Ms Josephine Rabbit are sisters. That's actually how you and I are cousins," Benjamin explained to her with a small smile.

His younger cousin frowned with this new information. "Well, then why is it that after all these years you've lived with us, not once have you mentioned about who your parenths were?" She asked the prickly question rather sharply, despite not wanting to tread on dangerous waters earlier.