The Rabbit Who Smiled

The first thing people noticed about the Rabbit was the smile.
The Rabbit was apparently always smiling.
Other animals always told the Rabbit this every time they saw him.
They mentioned it often enough that the Rabbit eventually assumed it must be true.

Not a huge smile.
Not a performed smile.
Just a face that seemed pleased to have arrived wherever it was.

Adults liked this.
Teachers liked it.
Neighbours liked it.
Relatives liked it.

The Rabbit became aware, in the vague way children become aware of things, that the smile was somehow part of the Rabbit.
Like having brown hair.
Like being left-handed.
Like having a name.

The strange thing was that the Rabbit never thought much about the smile itself.
The Rabbit only noticed when it disappeared.
That was different.

The smile vanished very quickly whenever the Rabbit thought it had done something wrong.
A broken thing.
A forgotten thing.
A disappointed look.
A raised voice.

The Rabbit remembers that feeling more clearly than the smile.
The sudden certainty that something had shifted.
The feeling that everyone else had received information that the Rabbit somehow should have had already.
The feeling that the room had changed shape.

Children do not always know what they are feeling.
But they are very good at noticing patterns.

The Rabbit noticed that mistakes felt heavier than they seemed.
The Rabbit noticed that getting something wrong could linger long after the thing itself had been forgotten.
Most of all, the Rabbit noticed that it preferred the version of the world where everybody was smiling too.