A funny thing happened on the way to work

It started much like any ordinary day. Cara climbed out of bed, yawned, stretched and headed for the shower. In the shower she belted out a medley of show tunes, before towelling off and getting dressed. For breakfast she had a cup of tea and a hot cross bun then made her way to the station.

The train was delayed. Nothing unusual in that though. Signal failure or broken down train or some such thing. Cara waited, shifting from foot to foot and humming quietly to herself. The platform gradually filled up with people.

Cara stopped humming and looked round. Had someone just said her name? No one seemed to be looking at her. She must have imagined it. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately; maybe it was affecting her more than she thought. Her brain did feel a little fuzzy. An advert for flights to New York caught her eye and she wondered if it was time for a holiday. She could just picture herself in Times Square.

Her reverie was broken by the train’s arrival and she concentrated on battling her way to a seat in the corner. She got out her make-up bag and began doing her face, compensating for the motion of the train with practised ease.

There it was again. Someone had definitely said her name. She looked round the carriage. No one was even remotely paying her any attention. In fact, the woman opposite her was fast asleep, her head lolling against the window. Cara’s eye was drawn to the fluffy scarf balled up in her lap.

Cara froze as the scarf sat up and looked at her. It twitched its nose and bared its large front teeth. Two long fluffy ears lolled on its head.
“It’s a rabbit,” Cara thought to herself and felt hysteria bubbling up inside her.

“Yes, it’s a rabbit,” said the rabbit. “It’s a shock, I know, so take a minute to get used to the idea. I’ll wait.”

Cara closed her eyes, counted to ten, opened them again. The rabbit stared coolly back at her. Cara glanced at her fellow passengers. Nobody else seemed to be bothered by the talking rabbit.

“Don’t worry about them,” said the rabbit. “They can’t see me. No one sees anything outside their own world on the train, Cara.”

Cara had to admit the rabbit seemed to be right. She leaned forward and whispered nervously, “How do you know my name?”

“No need to whisper!” said the rabbit loudly. “They can’t hear me either. And as for how I know your name, well, I know a lot of things. For example, you see that rather large gentleman sat over there?”

Cara looked across at a man wiping his sweaty face with an oversized handkerchief.

“He’s wearing women’s underwear,” the rabbit confided in a loud stage whisper. Cara winced then hurriedly tried to erase the unwanted mental image.

“And that fellow behind me,” the rabbit went on, “reading the book.” Cara looked over the rabbit’s shoulder to a young man frowning deeply at a copy of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. “He’s going to spend tonight in hospital after his fiancée wallops him with an ornamental frog statue. And he’ll deserve it too.”

The rabbit leaned towards her, suddenly serious. “Listen, Cara, you need to be at the corner of the Strand and Northumberland Avenue at 6.15, ok? Don’t worry, you won’t be late for the theatre,” he added, cutting off her objection before she could speak. Then he abruptly put his head back down, becoming distinctly scarf-like once more. Cara stared at the white ball of fluff but it didn’t stir.

“Can I help you?”

Cara jumped. The woman, now awake, was eying her with suspicion.

“Sorry,” Cara stammered, “I was just admiring your scarf. It’s very... unusual.”

All that day Cara thought about what had happened. It just wasn’t possible. Her lack of sleep was obviously worse than she thought. But it did all seem very real at the time.

At six, she shut her computer down and thought for a moment. She had half an hour before she was due to meet her sister at the theatre. It couldn’t hurt to just check out what the rabbit had said. Assuming the rabbit was real and she wasn’t going mad, of course.

On the Strand, Londoners and tourists milled about, weaving around each other or taking pictures. Cara stood at the crossing at the corner of Northumberland Avenue along with a crowd of people waiting to cross. She checked her phone. 6.14. She looked nervously around her.

A woman screamed and Cara looked up to see a small boy running across the road chasing a balloon. A dark blue van was bearing down on him, the driver braking hard, but too late.

Without thinking, Cara found herself sprinting with long strides across the road. She scooped the boy up in her arms and kept moving. She felt a sharp pain as the skidding van’s wing mirror caught her shoulder, spinning her off her feet still holding the boy close to her.

The boy wriggled away and ran to his mother. People gathered around talking excitedly as Cara lay on the ground. She gazed up at a ring of faces. One woman in particular looked very familiar, a distinctive white scarf round her neck. Cara could have sworn it was smiling at her.