Ruby the Rabbit Learns Leadership

 

By Alison Welton

Once upon a time, there was a rabbit called Ruby who lived in a snuggly burrow in a green grassy field by a fresh water stream.

Ruby was a very wise, calm and thoughtful rabbit and each day would sit back in the morning sunshine watching the other rabbits run around the open fields.  She would take in the views all around, breath in the clean fresh air with the smell of the fresh grass and listen to the sound of the stream trickling along.

The other rabbits that lived with her in the burrow spent their days running around the fields and getting up to mischief.  When they returned each day and told Ruby about their adventures and mishaps Ruby would say to them ‘I told you so’ or ‘that was your own fault’. Then the next day the rabbits would go off again on an adventure and do the same things and get in to the same mishaps and come back and Ruby would say again ‘I told you so’ or ‘that was your own fault’.

Ruby wanted to help the other Rabbits to become wiser, she wanted to share her wisdom and experience with them but wondered if they would ever listen.

Then, one day whilst lying back and wondering how she could get the rabbits to listen to her she saw black clouds gathering, felt a breeze picking and realised that a storm was brewing.  If the storm hit, the waters would rise and their burrow would be flooded. They would have no home.  Ruby went into a panic and started to hop around wondering what she should do and thinking why had no one realised this before and moved to another burrow.

Ruby had to do something so she stood high up on her back legs and called for all the rabbits to listen and told them that there was a storm coming their home would be flooded and if they would not listen to her it was their fault that they would not have a home anymore. The rabbits listened for a second and then continued to run around the fields again enjoying themselves.

Ruby sat back, then after a few moments got up again and hopped, jumped and bounced through the air doing her own dance and all the other rabbits watched in amazement as they had never seen Ruby dance before.  Once she had their attention she then said to them in her calm thoughtful voice, I have been exploring our land and when you go up the hill there is a beautiful tree which provides shelter from the rain and shade from the sun, there are amazing views down the valley and you can see for miles around, the grass is so lush and green up the hill and it tastes delicious…..  and before Ruby could finish all the other rabbits said lets go and see and they ran off up the hill.

They all reached the tree and tasted the lush grass and next to the tree was a burrow which was just perfect for them all to live in.  All the rabbits asked Ruby why she had not told them about this before……  The storm never came…..  but the rabbits lived up the hill in the new burrow and each day listened to Ruby’ enchanting tales of survival …………