5:11

The light was fading in the little grove and Edward, while possessed of slightly better night vision than the beaver, didn’t want to take any chances.

“First things first. Why the lemon?”

The beaver regarded the nosy bunny for a moment and replied, “Why is that any of your business?”

“Just curious. It certainly looks tasty but not what I would have termed ’your thing’.”

“And what would a long-legged busybody like you know about ’my thing’? In fact, what the hell would you know about anybody’s ‘thing’ outside of your own little, self-righteous world?” the beaver spat out with an acid tone. “Seems to me you aren’t capable of seeing anything beyond that twitchy pink nose of yours.”

“But as for the lemon, I think I will indulge your curiosity.” The beaver thought hard: he needed to buy some time. It’s not that he was afraid of the hare — at least not very afraid — but Edward was dangerous and handling this wrong could be disastrous to the beaver’s plans. And while manipulating humans was all well and good, the phrase ‘animal cunning’ wasn’t just a saying. The bunny had teeth, both metaphorically and literally, and knew how to use them.

“Well,” the beaver began, “it’s like this. When I first arrived in the city and was searching for the boy, I was struck by the different nature of the trees around here. I’d never been to this part of the world before, you know …” The beaver could see Edward’s ear relax and knew he had the time he needed if he could just keep the bunny’s attention.

“And well, I thought to myself …” he continued …