"How much would you sell that?" the man asked, pointing to my very large grey rabbit.
I clutched Fluff close to me. "My bunny is not for sale."
Mother smiled apologetically, "I'm sorry. She is right, the rabbit is not for sale."
"That is a pity. It is the biggest I've ever seen. How much does it weigh?"
"A little over five kilograms," mother said.
"Good grief. What do you feed that thing?"
"Just cabbages and beans."
"Must eat a lot of cabbage and beans," he said as he reached out to give Fluff a pat on the back.
"Yes, it does," mother said then indicated the baskets of vegetables arrayed in front of her. "Would you like some sweet potatoes or corn?"
"No, thank you. But I would like those cauliflowers there," he said, pointing to a good-sized one. That morning, it only took mother three hours to sell off all her vegetables. Fluff's size did help lure in curious onlookers and almost all of them would buy something from us.
Sellers from adjacent stalls hinted rudely about why our vegetables appeared larger and brighter than theirs. They said it was because mother planted her crops next to a leaking septic tank. That was a lie. Anyway if those vegetables were bad, we would not have had so many customers who kept returning to buy more from us.
Mother didn't always used to be so successful. In fact only a year ago, father had wanted to leave her for another woman. He called her a useless, stupid, ugly woman and struck her so badly, she did not get up from the floor after he walked out of the hut.
Fluff was still a normal little rabbit then. I was scared when mother didn't wake up and I could tell that Fluff was scared too because he was restless. I opened his cage and cradled him. "I'm sorry. I know you're hungry, so am I."
Suddenly he jerked his legs about and then jumped out of my arms. I gasped for a moment before running after him: Out of the wooden house, down the rickety steps and through the backyard into an encroaching jungle. I called and called. He would stop but each time I reached his side he would hop off again. It became dark and soon the only light I had was the one that emitted out of Fluff like the soft rays of moonbeams.
Suddenly I entered a circle of light. Eerie green and blue spread in patches over the irregular ground and glowed in rivulets along straight-bole trees. Fluff hopped up to a woman so beautiful I could not tell if she was young or old.
"Why are you children out so late?" she asked.
"Fluff ran away, and I followed him," I replied.
She patted him before turning to me and saying, "Your friend says he is afraid. He doesn't want to live at home anymore. There is too much screaming and crying."
I began to cry, but between sobs I managed to say, "I don't want to live there too, but mother and I don't have anywhere else to go. This is the only home we know."
"Do you want your father to stay?"
"Yes, but I want him to stop being angry, and I want him to help mother more."
She smiled. Then she plucked a glowing yellow flower blooming in an island of green light. "Come," she said, and I did. She gave me the slowly fading blossom. "Bury this in your backyard. Tomorrow morning you will find a leaf growing there. Pull it out and add it into your father's morning coffee."
"Will it make him sick?"
"No, it will make him a better person." She looked down at Fluff. "Now, bring her home. Everything will be alright after this."
So Fluff and I returned home. I buried the flower next to my mother's ginger roots before going into the dark hut. Mother was up and worried, and she kept asking where I had been but I wouldn't tell her. Instead I lay down on my mattress all the while hugging Fluff. I was more tired than hungry, so I did not hear father return but I woke to his heavy snoring the next morning. After a quick wash and a meal of boiled tapioca roots, I went to the back to help my mother pull out the weeds. At around eleven, I heard father shout for his coffee. As mother made her way back to the house, I went to the spot where I had buried the flower and, sure enough, growing on it was a blade of blue grass.
I pulled it out, shredded it and returned to the house. While my mother had her back turned, I slipped it into the steaming coffee pot. After father had his two cups of coffee he would usually leave the hut, but that day he stayed. He sat on the steps for about two hours, staring blankly into the distance. Each time I approached him, mother would call me to her and told me to leave him alone, her voice shaking.
Then for no apparent reason, he stood up, took out his toolbox and climbed to the roof to fix a leak there. The whole afternoon he hammered and sawed, fixing the walls, the windows, the steps. After that he came down to the backyard and began hoeing the edges of our garden that the jungle had encroached into over the years. Each time he passed us, I could see tears streaming down his face.
As evening drew near, mother dug up some tapioca roots and cooked dinner. He only stopped working when she told him to, and he only ate when she told him to, yet the whole time tears would stream down his face. The next morning, he woke up earlier than us and worked until he was asked to stop. He had never yelled at either mother or me since that first day.
And the other strange thing is, the ginger began to grow and grow. Then the tapioca roots grew so large, a single tuber could reach a kilogram in weight. My mother began selling the things we grow at the farmer's market, and with the money she earned, she bought more seeds and seedlings. We began growing sweet corns, honey pineapples, sweet potatoes, cabbages, three types of beans and now even cauliflowers.
So you see, we did not grow our vegetables next to leaking septic tanks. We grow them on my father's sweat and tears, because I know that until we get home tonight and until mother tells him to, he is not going to stop working.
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