← Sleep Tight Stories - Bedtime Stories for Kids
Sleep Tight Stories - Bedtime Stories for Kids
Follow the White Rabbit 🐰
00:12:34
A short bedtime story for kids just in time for Easter.
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- [00:09]
A
Hello, friends, and welcome to Sleeptight Stories. Clover is a white rabbit who has a very important job. She hides eggs every year. While some of the other animals follow behind and watch, Clover is careful to hide them in a spot that is not too hard or too easy. Pip, a brown rabbit, has arrived where Clover is hiding the eggs and is not sure what he is seeing. He asks some of the other animals, why are they following Clover? And is surprised by their answer. Follow the white rabbit. In a land far, far away from here, past the horizon and beyond the reach of our eyes, there was a place quite unlike anywhere you've ever been. The trees there were made of chocolate, real chocolate with bark you could see snap off and eat. The bushes grew lollipops instead of berries. And every now and then a frosted cupcake would drift down from the sky like a sugary snowflake. The rivers ran with mango juice, cold and sweet, and if you knelt down to cup some in your hands, it would stain your fingers orange for the rest of the day. The paths wound through sweet forests lined with gumdrops on both sides. And the path itself sparkled every color you could think of, shifting as you walked, like stepping on a rainbow that couldn't quite make up its mind. Even the animals were different here. A zebra with purple stripes, A parrot the color of a watermelon, A tortoise with a shell like a bag of spilled crayons. Right in the middle of all this color, in a meadow full of licorice flowers, lived a rabbit. And she stood out from everything around her because her fur was as white as fresh snow. Not cream white or almost white, your sparkly bright white. Her name was Clover and she had a very important job to do. Now, every year, right before Easter morning, Clover would set out across the land with a basket full of eggs. And not just any eggs. These eggs were painted in every color you could imagine, and a few colors you probably couldn't. There was one the exact shade of a sunset nobody had ever quite seen before. Another one looked like the inside of a watermelon, if watermelons were also somehow blue. Clover would tuck them into the chocolate tree roots, nestle them behind gumdrop bushes and hide them in the tall licorice grass where they'd be just tricky enough to find. And every year, all the animals would follow along behind. The purple striped zebra, the watermelon parrot, the crayon colored tortoise. They didn't help hide the eggs, that that was Clover's job. They just liked being near her in all that color and noise and sweetness. Clover was easy to find, easy to follow like a lighthouse, but fluffier. This year, though, someone new was watching from behind a gumdrop bush. Pip had no idea how he'd gotten here. One minute he'd been in a perfectly normal food looking for perfectly normal seeds. The next the ground had started to sparkle and everything smelled like a birthday cake. He'd followed the smell. That was probably a mistake. Now he was crouched behind a bush that appeared to be made entirely of of raspberry gumdrops, watching a parade of the strangest animals he'd ever seen, all following a plain white rabbit. Pip squinted. He looked at the zebra. He looked at the parrot. He looked at the tortoise. Then he looked back at Clover. Her, he said, mostly to himself. They're all following her. The raspberry bush didn't answer, which Pip thought was a little rude, considering it was clearly a magic bush. Pip watched for a while longer. The animals seemed perfectly happy. The zebra was humming something. The tortoise was moving slowly. But he was smiling, which a tortoise didn't always do. Eventually, Pip's curiosity got the better of him. It usually did. He scurried out from behind the gumdrop bush and fell into step beside a small round hedgehog whose spines were the color of tangerines. Excuse me, pip whispered. Why is everyone following that rabbit? The hedgehog looked at him the way you look at someone who has just asked why the sky is up. Because it's Easter, she said. Right, said Pip. But why her specifically? The hedgehog thought about this for a moment. Because she's clover. Yes. But Pip stopped. The hedgehog had already gone back to humming. Pip tried again with the tortoise, who was easier to keep up with. Excuse me, the rabbit up front. Why does everyone follow her? The tortoise looked at him slowly. You're not from here, are you? Is it that obvious? The tortoise looked at Pip's perfectly ordinary brown fur. A little bit, yes. Pip sighed. He looked down at himself. Brown. Just brown in a world where even the worms were probably polka dotted. He looked back up at Clover moving calmly through all that color, white as a cloud basket over one arm. She doesn't even look special, pip muttered, and somehow Pip wasn't sure how because he hadn't said it very loudly at all. Plover's ears went up. She turned around. She looked right at him. Hello, she said. I don't think I've seen you before. I'm Pip, said Pip, going a little pink under his Brown fur. I'm from somewhere else. Clover nodded like this was perfectly normal. Well, Pip from somewhere else, would you like to hide some eggs? Pip wasn't sure what he'd expected. Maybe something complicated, a map or a system or some kind of official Easter egg hiding training course. But Clover just reached into her basket, handed him a small egg the color of Mango Sunrise, and said, somewhere. It won't be too hard, but not too easy, either. Hip looked around. He spotted a little hollow in the roots of a chocolate tree, just deep enough to tuck something in. He placed the egg carefully inside. Like that. Perfect, said Clover. And that was that. They kept walking. Pip hid three more eggs behind a gumdrop bush, under a licorice flower, in the low branch of a tree that smelled like butterscotch. Each time, Clover would glance over and nod, and somehow that was enough. After a while, Pip noticed something. Every time Clover moved, the animals adjusted. When she went left, the parade went left. When she stopped to check her basket, everyone stopped, too. Not because they had to, but because it felt right, like she was the part of the picture everything else was arranged around. Pip thought about what he'd said earlier. She doesn't even look special. He looked at her now. White fur moving through a world of crazy color. Easy to find, easy to follow. A lighthouse, like he'd. Well, like he'd almost thought before. Maybe, Pip decided, looking special and being special were two pretty different things. He didn't say this out loud. It felt like the kind of thought you keep for yourself. At least for a while. When the last egg was hidden, Clover set her empty basket down in the meadow and stretched her long white ears back. Same time next year, she said to no one in particular, which everyone understood to mean all of them. The animals began to drift away through the sweet forest, back to their chocolate trees and their mango rivers and their licorice flower meadows. Pip stood there for a moment. Do you ever wish you had more color? He asked. Like everyone else, Clover considered this seriously, the way she seemed to consider everything. Sometimes, she said. But then who would everyone follow? She picked up her basket and hopped away through the sparkling path. White as snow, easy to see all the way, until the forest curved and she was gone. Pip stood alone in the meadow for a moment. Then he looked down at his own brown fur. Perfectly ordinary from a perfectly ordinary world. He smiled a little. Then he followed the smell of mango juice and found his way home. And that is the end of our story. Good night. Sleep tight.