The judge was a woman from up near Mattoon who had judged rabbits at fairs all over the state. She was kind to the kids, but she did not give anything away. She put each rabbit on the table, turned it over, checked its teeth and toenails and ears, looked at it from the side and from the front, and wrote on her clipboard.
Della showed Smoke first. Then Clover. Then Pepper, Biscuit, and Pumpkin.
She posed every one of them herself, the way she had practiced on the carpet square on my kitchen table. Front feet under the shoulders. Back feet under the hips. Head up. She did not shake once.
When the judge asked her questions, she answered every one. What’s the ideal weight for a Holland Lop senior doe? What disqualifies a rabbit? What do you feed them? How many litters did you raise this year?
When the judge asked her how many rabbits she had brought to the fair, Della said, “Five, ma’am.”
Get a new story in your inbox every morning.
Facebook doesn’t show you every story we post. Our free newsletter does. Join 2,500+ readers.
The judge looked at her clipboard. “It says seven on your entry.”
“Yes ma’am,” Della said. “I lost two.”
The judge looked at her for a second. Then she nodded and wrote something down and said, “Thank you, Della.”
Smoke won Best of Breed for the Holland Lops.
Clover won a blue. Pepper and Pumpkin won blues. Biscuit, who was still a little thin from his time in the woods, won a red, and Della said that was fair, because he was.
When the judge set the purple rosette on top of Smoke’s cage, Della did not jump up and down. She just stood there and looked at it. Then she picked Smoke up out of the cage and held her against her chest, and buried her face in the rabbit’s gray fur.
Huck was standing at the end of the aisle with Nadine. He had come straight from the hog barn and he smelled like it. He gave Della a thumbs up and turned red again.
Ivo was there too, on a folding chair by the door, with his cap pulled low. He did not get up. He just raised one hand off his knee, and then let it fall.
That was when I saw Shawna.
She came in through the open side of the barn, by the water spigot, holding her boy’s hand. She was wearing sunglasses pushed up on her head and a blue shirt from the co-op. She looked smaller than I remembered.
I do not know who told her the time. Maybe Della’s dad. Maybe nobody, and she just came.
She stopped at the end of the third aisle and looked down it.
Then she started walking.
She walked down that row of cages slowly, with her boy beside her. People moved out of her way. Not rudely. Just the way people move when they know something is about to happen and do not want to be in the middle of it.
She stopped in front of the first cage. She read the white card.
Della Lasley. Holland Lop. Clover. Blue ribbon.
She moved to the second. Pepper. Blue ribbon.
The third. Biscuit. Red ribbon.
The fourth. Pumpkin. Blue ribbon.