I
t was soft and wiggly and warm. In fact, it was so warm that Chaim’s hand was starting to sweat, but he refused to put it down. There is absolutely nothing better than holding your own pet, especially if you’ve been begging for one for years. The day when your parents finally take you to a farm to pick out a small three-month-old rabbit is the best day of your life.

“Bunny,” Chaim’s sister suggested. “That’s a good name.”

Chaim shook his head. “Shlomo Zalman.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. I am a boy, but no one calls me ‘Boy’ as my name, so why are animals called things like ‘Bunny’ if they’re a rabbit or ‘Ketzele’ if they’re a cat. No fair. He should have a regular name.”

“How do you know Bunny is a he?”

Chaim opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. It hadn’t occurred to him that his rabbit could be a girl. “Nah, can’t be,” he said finally, brooking no argument, and placed S.Z. carefully back in his cage. Chaim’s parents got the rabbit for free because the farm had lots and lots and seemed thrilled to get rid of one, but they had bought the cage, water bottle, toy, and lots of rabbit food at a pet store.

Chaim’s sister got up to leave the room. “I have a report to work on. She’s a cute rabbit!” He was about to retort, but he sneezed instead.

Chaim must have had ten wonderful dreams about his new rabbit that night, because there are two things that you need to know about a pet if you’ve never had one: First of all, wanting a pet is a stronger type of wanting than wanting other things. You can want a toy or rollerblades a lot, and you might feel a deep need for a bike. But when you feel the need for a pet, you want it more than you can want anything else. Why is that? Because it’s alive, it can see you, and on some level it needs you. A Ripstik doesn’t need you, and it doesn’t feel like company in the dark in your room at night.

The second thing to know about pets is that when you put a lot of work into something, it feels like your own. And Chaim had been putting a lot of work into Shlomo Zalman — he begged for him for a long time, trying not to beg for anything else much so his parents would see how badly he wanted a rabbit and just a rabbit.

Chaim woke up in the morning to the joy of seeing his rabbit at eye level, looking at him through the bars of the cage, nose twitching. Chaim’s own nose twitched. It was stuffed, and maybe he was coming down with a cold, but it didn’t matter. In school, all the boys wanted to hear about Shlomo Zalman. Chaim’s best friend, Zevi, had wanted a pet as much as Chaim, but his parents still refused.

“Can I come see Shlomo Zalman tonight?”

“Of course! Wait till you see him. You’re gonna love every fur on him,” Chaim assured Zevi and later that day, Zevi did.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 758)