The arrival of the Chocolate Rabbit family

It was a quiet Saturday afternoon in the village of Arcfield, and Mayor Nicholas McFarlane was taking advantage of this well-deserved free time to catch up on Sylvania’s happenings by reading the newspaper. It was also his duty, after all, to be in the know of things happening in the neighbouring towns and villages. 

His wife, Elizabeth, was happily taking care of her plants. She has quite the green thumb!

And their eldest daughter, Annabelle, was playing with her baby brother, Albie, and taking care of him.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Not wasting a moment, Nicholas went to open it.

At the other side of the door were Teri Chocolate and her children Freya and Coco.
“Greetings, esteemed guests!” said Mr McFarlane in an ostentatious way, as he smiled widely. He kept the door open for these members of the Chocolate family to enter the house. They had been expecting them.
“Oh, Nicholas! It is so good to see you! Freya, Coco, say hello to Mr McFarlane”.
The children did so; Coco smiled as Nicholas gave him his hand to shake, but Freya greeted him with a small voice. She didn’t seem so happy to be there, but Nicholas didn’t seem offended.
“Where’s Frasier?” he asked, inquiring about Teri’s husband.
“Oh, I asked him to stop in the town for a while and get some things. He’ll arrive shortly”.

Teri and her children entered the house and were immediately greeted by a happy Elizabeth, who embraced Teri warmly. They had been friends ever since they were young, and the Chocolates had recently lost their home in an awful natural disaster and had to leave their town behind. When Elizabeth had learned of this by her friend’s letters, she had immediately invited her and her family to move to Arcfield and live in their house while they got on their feet again.
“Teri, I’m so glad you are all alright! Ah, your children have grown so big already!”
“Elizabeth, how can I ever thank you enough for having us? Oh, it’s been so difficult…!”
“No need to thank me at all! What are friends for? Please, come in, this is your home”.
The children greeted Mrs McFarlane as well, and then Coco proceeded to admire their TV while Freya stood quietly to the side.

The two women went to the living room, where Nicholas was waiting for them.
“I made coffee for you two ladies, and now I’ll be out of your hair so that you can catch up”, he said with a laugh.
“Thank you so much, darling”, said Elizabeth, smiling warmly at her husband. Even though he was now the mayor, he had always been a modest and good-natured man, calm and cheerful in every situation. The position hadn’t changed him at all. She loved him with all her heart.

It was then that Annabelle entered the room with little Albie in her arms. She handed him to her mother.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Chocolate” she said, smiling politely at Teri.
“You already knew Annabelle from when she was little, Teri, and here’s Albie, my baby son”.
“Oh, Annabelle, you have grown so much! You’re a lovely young lady now. And Albie’s so precious! I do hope that you can become friends with my Freya, she’s not taking everything that’s happened all that well…”.
“Ah yes, the poor thing, I did find her very quiet. I remember her quite a bit chattier. Don’t worry, Terri”, said Mrs McFarlane. “I’m sure it will not take long at all for her to adapt”.
Another knock in the door could be heard just then. Once again, Nicholas went to open it.

Out in the entrance was Frasier Chocolate, visibly out of breath, pushing his twins’ pram and carrying two packages. He had left one of them in the floor to rest a bit as soon as he had knocked on the door. Little Crème immediately ran up to Nicholas and tugged at his trouser leg.
“Hi!” she said, all smiles.
“I come bearing gifts” said Frasier, smiling tiredly at his old friend.
“And in very good company, as I can see!” Nicholas said, laughing as he petted Crème’s head. He helped Frasier with the children and the packages and they all went inside the house.

As soon as they entered the dining room, Crème climbed on top of an expensive-looking chair and “ooh-ed” at the big TV. Her father, half-panicking, tried to have her climb down without success, and Nicholas told him with a laugh not to worry.

Elizabeth and Teri entered the room, and after greeting Frasier, the former stared in surprise at the three babies for a moment.
“Teri…” she finally said, “Had you mentioned in your letters that you had had another three children?”
Teri was left speechless for a moment and then panicked visibly. She approached her friend with an apologetic look.
“Oh, Liz, I’m so sorry, did I really not mention that there were seven of us? Oh, I’m so sorry, please forgive me, I swear that I did not mean to trick you! It’s just, everything has been so hectic, and…”
Elizabeth laughed and made a gesture to calm her friend.
“Please, don’t worry, Teri! I was just a bit surprised for a moment, that’s all. There’s more than enough room for all of you. We’ll welcome the company; the house is sure going to be lively now!”
“We’ll ask the carpenter for new furniture if needed” said Nicholas with a smile.
Teri and Frasier looked at each other, amazed at their friends’ generosity. Their family had been through a lot and being able to come live with the McFarlanes at their village of Arcfield was an amazing blessing. They couldn’t have been more grateful.
“Teri asked me to go to the stores in the village and get a couple of things” said Frasier, pointing to the two packages over the table. One of them is a cake from the Village Cake Shop…”
“Oh, they make wonderful cakes in there!” smiled Nicholas. “We can have it as a dessert for lunch”.

“…And the other one”, Teri continued, smiling “is a gift for you, Liz, my dearest friend!”.
“Oh, there was no need!” exclaimed Mrs McFarlane, happy and surprised. After setting Albie down on a chair, she opened the package and saw that the present was a book. On the cover, it said “Wild Flowers & Trees from Sylvania”. “A book on plants! Thank you so much, Teri and Frasier!”.
“It’s the least I could do” said Teri, smiling calmly. “You have always loved your plants!”.
While all this happened, the Chocolate oldest children were exploring the house that was to be their new home. They couldn’t help but be impressed at how big it was. Their big family had been quite cramped in their old house, the one they had lost. Coco found his way to the garden…

And Annabelle, that felt quite shy around the adults, had seen Freya go up to the second floor and had followed her. She found her on the balcony. It took her a few seconds to gather the courage to speak:
“Uhm… Hi. I’m Annabelle”.
“…”
“… You must be Freya. My mum told me you were going to come. I’m really happy you’re here! I get bored sometimes with just my baby brother, and…”
“…”
“Eh… Your brother seems nice”.

“He can act really dumb sometimes”, said Freya bitterly. Annabelle was kind of startled when she replied, seeing that she hadn’t said anything until that point. She wasn’t sure what to answer to that, so she was glad when the other girl turned around and continued to speak.

“I don’t like being here. My house is gone, and I had to leave my friends behind. I miss them”.
Annabelle stayed silent for a moment, trying to think of a way to cheer Freya up. Freya interpreted her silence as the conversation being over and went to the door to leave, but Annabelle stopped her.
“Wait!”

When Freya turned around, she saw that Annabelle was holding a beautiful pink ribbon, offering it to her.
“I made this, but it doesn’t really look good on me. But I… I think it would suit you perfectly. Do you want it? It’s a gift”.
Freya stared at her blankly, and Annabelle felt silly for a moment. It was all she had been able to think of doing, she had put her hand in her skirt’s pocket and had offered the ribbon to Freya without thinking. She thought for sure that she was going to reject it…
But instead, Freya took and wore it in her ear. Annabelle smiled widely.

“You look so pretty! I knew it would suit you, Freya!”.
For the first time in a very long time, Freya smiled softly. She hadn’t expected this kindness from Annabelle. She had thought that she would be a snotty, spoiled rich girl, but that couldn’t be farther away from the truth. Maybe her mother was right and she could make new friends in this new place after all...
“Do you want to go down? I think my mum is going to make lunch. We could help!”.
Freya smiled once again.
“Sure!”.