Milly

I must of been about 10 years old and my mum bought me a rabbit, it was brown and white and the cutest little thing with floppy ears! I used to come home from school and run into the garden looking for it, it was always there and i could literally smell it out if it was hiding under some bush. Thats not to say that it was smelly, it just smelt like any other animal, but i had grown this new strong sense of smelling it out. I used to sit for ages stroking the rabbit and i became very attached to the creature, i would feed it lettuce but no one had told me that rabbits are vegetarian animals, and i was so young, i just used to give it bits of my food like slices of pepperoni, some of my mince meat pie etc...and it loved it, it was lapping it up, so i assumed it was ok and i never questioned anyone and no one knew what i was doing either.

Eventually, the meat intake must have got to the poor creature. It wouldn't come out from behind some brick and brack we had piled up outside our shed and so i sat for hours sticking my hand through a thin gap where i could see it, stroking its furry head and trying to call it out. I eventually gave up calling it out, it was shivering and i knew something was wrong, so i just sat there and stroked it to make it feel safe and it never tried to get away from my hand either. I felt like it was happy to be stroked by me. My arm was hurting as the gap was narrow for my arm to fit through, but i carried on stroking anyway. My mum called me in for dinner and i didnt want to leave but it was getting dark and cold too, so i gave the rabbit my last pat on the head, said goodbye and went inside. The next morning, i went in the garden and started to call the rabbit like i always used to, i couldn't see it anywhere, and i couldn't smell it either. I knew it wasn't in the garden anymore. I thought it had run away, but then my brother came out and told me he thinks it had a heart attack, it had died during the night.

It was a harsh reality i had to face at such a young age. I still didn't know or think it was because of me feeding the little rabbit my left over pepperoni and other meats...but now, i reckon i killed my rabbit! I feel so bad for what i did, i always feel so guilty about it now...