"Technically," chirped the otter
It's easy to get across a minefield, or, sometimes, a river. You just have to be smart enough to be the second one to try.
One day there was a mostly grown bunny, out on his own for the first time, who wanted to cross a river. There were many bunnies on this side and the clover was low-cut and sparse. On the other side it was just as sparse. But on an island in the middle, it stood thick and tall.
There was a trail, worn by generations of bunny feet, down to the river where they drank. The young bunny hopped down to the shore and peered across at the island. There was also a trail there, narrower and partly overgrown. Here must be the place to cross, but the water was deep and swift and cold.
He poked a paw into it uncertainly and knew he didn't want to swim across. Other bunnies must have crossed somehow, though, or the path wouldn't be there on the other side.
The little bunny looked at the cold, swift water, at the tracks that ran right to it, and turned away. Just up the slope he'd seen an older bunny and he hopped over to ask his question. The other bunny stopped nibbling clover and twitched its whiskers inquisitively as he approached.
"How do I cross to the island?" Said the young bunny politely, for the other bunny was his senior, older, bigger and wiser.
"Ask the otter," said the older bunny. It looked down the slope and pointed a paw. "See, there is his wake in the water. Go down to the shore and wait, the otter will come talk to you."
The older bunny hopped off to find a fresh patch of clover to nibble and the younger was left to his own thoughts. His mother had told him many things as he was reared. She showed him many places to find sweet fresh clover and told him how to avoid the clever foxes and the high-flying hawks. She had mentioned the river only as a place to drink, though, not as a thing to cross.
The young bunny nodded. It fell to the young to explore, to forge ahead, to be brave. He would talk to the otter.
He hopped down to the water and this time he stayed. Sure enough, a wake soon appeared in the water coming toward him, and a set of eyes popped out of the water and looked at him. The young bunny stepped back and the foreparts of a long wet slinky creature with short legs and webby paws emerged from the water.
The otter looked at him with dark shiny eyes and chirped, "Do you want to cross the water? I can carry you."
"Is there no other way?" Said the bunny.
"You could swim," chirped the otter. "It is the only way I know. I am an otter, I come onto land only to sleep. Bunnies do try to cross on their own, but many drown. We otters would be useless in your meadow, and you bunnies are useless in the water. No offense."
"None taken," said the bunny politely. "Why are there not more bunnies on that side?" He pointed a paw at the island.
"Not many cross," chirped the otter. "And the ones that do, eat and then come back.
"So it is not safe to stay there," said the young bunny.
"It is not," chirped the otter. "With no bunnies to eat, the hawks look elsewhere. If bunnies stayed, the hawks would come, and there is nowhere to hide on the island."
"All right," said the bunny. "How do you get me there?"
The otter sank back into the water until only its face and long back showed. It was no bigger than a fox and its body was perhaps half again as long as the young bunny. "Cling to my back and I'll carry you across."
And so the bunny did, trustingly. His trust was almost instantly betrayed. The otter swam out toward the island, swiftly, and would have deposited the bunny there in moments. Instead, in the deepest part of the water the otter suddenly sank out from under him. The bunny clung to the water-weasel's fur and only succeeded in being pulled underwater.
The young bunny gasped out bubbles, lost his grip on the otter and kicked blindly toward the surface. A sudden turbulence spun him in the water and he opened his eyes just in time to see a flash of white fangs. He realized what was happening only when the onrushing otter maw engulfed his head.
The slinky water-weasel doubled back after dislodging him. Far better built for the water than he was and a far more experienced swimmer, it predicted his path and was there to meet him before his nose broke the surface. His forward stroke met a wide-open maw coming the other way and with a wet thump his face was in the otter's gullet.
"Help!" Squeaked the young bunny, but there was no one to hear. He felt the otter thrust its jaws out of the water, and a combination of inertia and gravity sent him sliding into its maw. Fangs scraped across his haunches as the otter snapped its jaws, engulfing his rump, and he could only kick futilely as the water-weasel snapped its jaws shut around his hindpaws.
The otter bobbed its muzzle, swallowing, and the bunny squeaked in terror as the bulge that was him moved down the otter's neck into its long body. Scratched and scraped, covered with gullet slime, he slid helplessly into the otter's stomach.
"Why," squeaked the young bunny, who was now just a long bulge in the otter's body. "I trusted you!"
Moments later the otter poked his head out of the water, back at the shore where it started. Swimming was no challenge for it, even with half its weight in bunny squirming inside its gut.
"You want to cross the water," the otter chirped. "I can take you across."
"Thank you," said the older bunny the younger one spoke to just a few minutes earlier. He gripped onto the otter's long body, broader and lumpy now,and the water-weasel set off once more for the island. A double weight of bunny slowed even the web-footed otter but soon enough they reached their destination.
"Thank you," the older bunny said once more, hopping off the otter's wet back and turning his attention to the plentiful clover. "How long do I have before I must return?"
"Until about noon," chirped the otter, who was stretched out on the shore with a forepaw draped across the vaguely squirming bulge in his long body. "You know I digest bunnies fast. If you wait much longer than that I might be hungry when you climb on my back."
The older bunny nodded. He was not the first and not the last to use this trick to reach the island. He hadn't lied about why bunnies didn't live here full time. He'd just lied about the otter being a safe way to get here. It was only safe if you were the second one to try it.
"Technically I didn't lie to him at all," said the older bunny, who had just seen the bulge in the otter kick one last time then grow still. "I said you'd carry him across the water and you did."
The otter licked his chops clean of the taste of bunny. His transportation service was a good deal for everyone concerned. Well, almost everyone.
"Technically," chirped the otter, and settled down on the grassy shore to digest his meal.