After the incident with the Mr. Johannesen, class resumed, and the stares and whispers, though still present, were less frequent under the teacher's watchful eye. The morning flew by, and before Danielle knew it, it was time for lunch. Mr. Johannesen dismissed the students, but asked for Danielle and Kat to remain behind.
"I'd like to apologize," he said. "After so many years of teaching, you start to assume that some kids are just trying to test your limits. I made that assumption with you two, and I shouldn't have. And I'm especially sorry I revealed your secret in front of the class, if it was a secret."
"It was," Danielle sighed. "But...apology accepted, I guess." Kat nodded.
The teacher nodded. "If you'll take a little unsolicited advice, you two shouldn't make any further attempt to hide the fact that those are real. Kids can be pretty vicious at this point in their lives, and the more you try to hide it, the more they'll see it as a potential weakness. You don't have to shout it from the rooftops, but be open about the fact your rabbit ears and tail are real. That's part of who you are, and there's nothing wrong with it."
"Okay," Danielle murmured. Kat hust nodded.
A short while later, Danielle and Kat were standing in the lunch line in the cafeteria. Both would rather have been far away from each other, but they were at the tail end of the line, and there was nobody to stand between them. Danielle had been hoping to verify that she still liked meat, but unsurprisingley, the cafeteria hamburgers were of a grade that she would have found repulsive in any form. Both girls ended up getting a plateful of mixed salad, which was about the only edible thing that didn't look moldy.
They hadn't wanted to sit with each other, either, but the other students had taken all the other tables, so they sat at the smaller tabl, munching their greens and dreading the inevitable confrontation.
The confrontation came, just as they knew it would; one of the older boys, looking to pick a fight, came up to their table. He pounded on the surface; they pretended to not notice, even though their drinks spilled into their salad. After getting no reaction the first time, he batted Danielle's ears around, making lewd comments about "going at it like rabbits" and comparing them, disparagingly, to the Playboy Bunnies. They continued to ignore him.
Enraged at having gotten no response, he grabbed Danielle's ears and pulled. Danielle shrieked and grabbed at her head, instantly drawing the attention of everyone in the lunchroom. The bully, even more surprised, dropped her ears like hot potatoes and backed off, confused.
After a moment, he collected himself. "Well," he laughed, "looks like they're for real, Bunny. HEY, EVERYBODY," he yelled to the stunned lunchroom crowd, "BUNNY HERE HAS RABBIT EARS!"
"Leave her alone." The voice came from a boy about Danielle's age, who had gotten upfrom his nearby seat. "She didn't do anything to you."
The bully smirked. "What are you, some kind of bunny-loving weirdo?" he asked. The boy shrugged. "I just think," he replied, "that you should pick on someone your own size, instead of pulling hair like a three-year-old girl."
That comparison wounded the bully's pride, and he slunk away, muttering about how the kid could go ahead and have them, if he was so into rabbits.
The boy turned to Kat and Danielle. "Mind if I sit with you?" he asked. When neither girl objected, he sat. "By the way," he said, "my name's Colin." Both gorls introduced themselves.
"It wasn't hair," Danielle corrected. "That was my ears he grabbed."
Colin stared at her. "So they really are real?"
She nodded. "Yeah," she replied. "Weird, I know..."
"I don't know," Colin said. "Actually, I think it's kinda cool."