The news that his prophet had been apprehended and beaten up by a mob came as a grave setback for Moeka the water-snake. Things had been desperate for some time, and the word on the riverbank was that Stabby, the micro-lender from Brakpan, had run out of patience and was in negotiations with the local town council to divert sewerage into Moeka’s stretch of water: shit floated, Stabby had told the mayor, and somehow or another he’d get Moeka to surface.
The summonses were everywhere. Ellerines were days away from repossessing his Sparta Buff lounge suite. He flinched as he thought of the R2 000 he’d lost at the track the week before. His bookie had urged him to put two monkeys on a filly, and having parted with his children’s educations, he’d found himself watching a nag meandering through the paddock with a pair of rhesus monkeys on its back. If ever he’d needed his prophet to come through, it was now. And all he’d had to do was keep the region relatively free of tornados.
Ruined, all ruined. Apparently the rubes had wanted a tornado after all, but one that arrived only to veer away at the last second: proof of danger, and evidence of salvation, all for the price of a chip-roll. His operator was in hospital, and the sack of R2 coins had presumably been reclaimed by the mob, saved for a rainier day, on which they would enlist Thabo the Thunder Toad or Val the Vengeance Vole to protect them from the ills of the superstitious world.
Nobody went to the Easter Bunny. You just didn’t do it. If the Easter Bunny wanted to see you, you got seen. If he wanted to tell you something, you got told. Maybe you’d get a praline in your postbox, or a truffle in your bed. Nobody took a bus to George, or buzzed the Fancourt reception desk, asking for Mr Easter in Cottontail Lodge, as Moeka was doing this morning. It was beyond desperate. It was insane.
And yet here he was, and there was the monogrammed dressing-gown, with its golden EB on the lapel; and there they all were, the rest of them, lolling about as the Bunny himself poured Moeka a drink of milk. There was the Tokoloshe, smoking a cigar and practicing his putting, swinging his penis at a crate full of Ferrero Rocher truffles. There was the Pregnancy Frog, fresh back from jumping about in the belly of a pregnant virgin. And there was —
‘Have you met De la Rey?” asked the Easter Bunny, as a grubby bearded person reeking of cordite stepped forward. ‘He’s new. Sort of appeared here a month ago. Apparently the Afrikaans youth keep clicking their Rubicon slippers together and saying ‘There’s no place like the past’.” He poured himself a brandy and sank into a nearby armchair. ‘At least they believe in something. Crucial in our industry. Makes a nice change: we haven’t had an Afrikaner here since Van Hunks emigrated to Perth. Has De la Rey showed you his trick? Show him, generaal.”
The general reached into his jacket pocket and carefully withdrew what looked like a blue prune.
‘Is that a magic fruit?” asked Moeka. The Tokoloshe snorted, and holed a seven-footer with this two-footer.
‘That,” said the Bunny, ‘is Racheltjie de Beer’s frostbitten nose. If you role up a R50 note, and stick it up a nostril, it tells you the future. Except the bastard psychic Popsicle won’t tell me mine.”
‘About that loan,” said Moeka.
‘Not that I need voodoo to spot a winner,” said the Bunny. ‘It’s huge. Has to be. Chocolate eggs for all spiritual occasions. I’m going to be everywhere. The Christmas Coney. The Ramadan Rabbit. The Hanukkah Hare.”
‘The loan?”
‘Oh, right,” said the Bunny. ‘Well, it’s more like a contract job than a loan. I understand that you do tornados.”
‘Well—”
‘Good,” said the Bunny. ‘I need a tornado. One million bucks, straight into your bank account. Or 12-million chocolate coins. Some people prefer the chocolate coins.” He got up and went to the window. ‘I want you to tornado Fancourt to hell. Obliterated. Not my pad, you understand, but everything else.” He waved a paw at the chalets beyond the putting green. ‘This country isn’t big enough for two sets of fake people living lives of saccharine fantasy in clichéd surroundings. These freaks live in Cloud Cuckoo Land. I can’t allow that. This needs to be Easter Bunny Land. No clouds. No cuckoos. Just bunnies. Capiche?”
‘Mister Bunny,” said Moeka, swallowing hard. ‘I, uh —” He began to sob. ‘It’s no good. I can’t actually make tornados happen.” Everyone froze: the Tokoloshe’s putter shrank by a foot. ‘It’s true. I can’t do anything. I can’t even reach the buttons on the ATM. I think I’ve got R150 in my Absa account, but they won’t let me in the door because I’m a snake, and no-one will lift me up so that I can press the buttons with my nose. I’m so sorry.” He wept.
The Easter Bunny put a gentle paw on Moeka’s head. ‘There’s no shame in being a fake,” he murmured. ‘Geez, I haven’t delivered an egg since the ninth century. Tokoloshe here hasn’t seen any action in decades. He says it’s because Cashbuild has flooded the bedding market with cheap bricks, but we both know it’s because golf is better than sex.”
‘Who we, white man?” growled the Tokoloshe. But he had to concede that the Bunny was right. The Bunny was always right.