Aine never thought of her life as a rulership. She had a grey striped cat named Mitt, a budgederie named Bird, and a Mini Rex rabbit and two guinea pigs with no names at all. She cared for them and they worshipped her in the respectful and terrified way small animals of limited intelligence do—quivering with pleasure and worry every time she noted them. Aine had been given charge of them, but she didn’t realize how much power she had. She was equally unaware of the power she had over her parents. At any rate, she ruled as benevolently as did her neighbor, Pascal, but a good deal more ignorant of her rule than he was of his.
It was Friday afternoon. Aine would return home from school every Friday and clean her subjects’ cages. On this particular Friday Aine had finished these duties and was playing with her rabbit. She proffered a clover leaf trio to him and he devoured it slowly, his jaws working frantically and his body not moving an inch. So engrossed in this was Aine that she failed to notice Pascal’s approach. He stood in front of her, straddling the ground, arms locked behind his back. He was used to being noticed. That fact that Aine didn’t always notice him was frustrating and appealing. He coughed. The rabbit froze, a clover stem lunging out from between his furry lips. His eyes glazed over, and Aine looked up.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello, Aine,” Pascal said. He always called his subjects and peers by their names, to be courteous.
Aine poked the end of the clover stem and applied a slight, constant pressure on it. Pascal didn’t move. The rabbit’s heart began beating again and he finishing masticating his dinner.
“What’re you doing?” Pascal said.
Aine looked up at him, her eyes wide and clear of thoughts. “Playing,” she said. “Do you want to?” she asked, to be polite. She hadn’t really any use for company.
“No, thank you” Pascal said, turning his head to look at a tree so Aine wouldn’t notice how much he did want to join her. “I better get home,” he said, after a moment.
“Okay,” Aine responded, distracted by her rabbit’s twitching whiskers.
Pascal waited for Aine’s valediction, but it didn’t come. “Well, goodbye,” he said.
“Bye.” Aine was examining the variations of design in her rabbit’s fur and marveling silently at its softness.
Pascal watched her for another moment before he lost hope of more of a farewell from her. He turned and walked back across her yard and slipped through a break in the bushes. He plucked a dead branch off of one and made his way home, whipping it at things along the way, and nodding to his scurrying subjects as he passed them.
As he journeyed through his serfs’ lands towards his own little palace yards, Pascal pondered ways to get Aine to notice him. His adoration recognized Aine as a neighbour’s princess-daughter, not as Pascal’s own subject. He had no power over her, and was painfully conscious that she was not in awe of him. It would be tricky, but Pascal knew that he was clever and that he had forces at his command: forces Aine would notice. Pascal had observed her discreetly for months. He knew that she cared very much for the little animals under her care and noticed precisely nothing else. Pascal would use this to his advantage.
Aine, meanwhile, had already forgotten about her tête-à-tête with Pascal and was proffering her rabbit a wilting dandelion leaf.
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