Bunny Lake Is Missing
By Evelyn Piper
4/5
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About this ebook
Blanche Lake is not like the other mothers who come to collect their children at the local nursery school on New York’s Upper East Side. She lives alone, has a job, and has never been married. It’s the first day of school when this story begins, and Blanche is eager to see how her daughter, Bunny, has fared away from home. But her expectant waiting becomes a mother’s most dreaded nightmare: Bunny never materializes. Neither teachers nor students recall the small girl, and soon Blanche is engaged in a frantic search for any trace of her missing daughter. And the worst part is . . . no one believes her. In this fraught and at times freakish tale of suspense, Evelyn Piper takes us deep into the psyche of the 1950s to explore American fetishes, fallacies, and fears around motherhood and sexuality. Blanche emerges as a new kind of heroine—a hard-boiled mom with gun in hand, willing to take any risk to find her missing daughter.
“A classic thriller—a riveting revisit to the dark side of the fifties, where the tension beneath the calm surface has an undertow that drags the reader into its grip. Prime pulp—pure pleasure.” —Linda Fairstein, author of The Bone Vault
Evelyn Piper
Merriam Modell, pen name Evelyn Piper, was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1908. She is known for writing mystery thrillers of intricate, suspenseful plotting that depict the domestic conflicts of American families. Her short stories have appeared in the The New Yorker and two of her novels, Bunny Lake Is Missing and The Nanny, were adapted into major Hollywood films.
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Reviews for Bunny Lake Is Missing
33 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You pick your three-year-old daughter up from her first day of pre-school. You wait with all of the other mothers, none of whom you know since you are new in town and on your own, as they watch their children come down the stairway. You wait. And wait. But your daughter does not appear. You look for her, for her teacher, but you can't find either. You panic when the school administration tells you they have no record of your daughter even registering for pre-school let alone attending the first day. The police show up, and you beg them to start searching for your daughter, but they seem hesitant. Soon you understand that everyone believes you don't even have a daughter at all. Blanche Lake faces a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances in Evelyn Piper's novel Bunny Lake is Missing. She has just moved to New York City, not all of her belongings have arrived so she has no pictures of her daughter to show the police officers who doubt she exists. She has kept a low profile because she is not married to her daughter's father so no one at the office where she works even knows she has a child. One thing after another that might help her prove her child exists, fails to materialize for some reason, leaving Blanche on her own, searching the city streets throughout the novel in a Kafkaesque nightmare.I've written before about the pleasure of the suspense in classic pulp fiction thrillers like Bunny Lake is Missing. The situation is basic, a mother searches for the daughter only she believes is real. We're spared the gory details that have become so common in today's crime thrillers. Ms. Piper can generate suspense to spare from this simple situation without invoking the latest in ritualistic serial murderers. It's interesting to me to find that Bunny Lake is Missing has been reprinted by The Feminist Press because it's difficult to see how this novel is feminist at all. Blanche appears to be undergoing a punishment for having a child out of wedlock. Her biggest on-going fear is that someone will discover her daughter is illegitimate. The entire situation she finds herself in is the result of her affair with a married man. Her mother does not support her. The good friend she stayed with, practically in hiding, while she was pregnant and during the first few years of Bunny's life, offered to adopt the child once she married because it was the only way Bunny could have a normal life. That Blanche insisted on raising Bunny herself seems to have led to her kidnapping.I think a clue to what the reader is supposed to take away and to what makes this a feminist novel can be found in the title. A real or imagined child is missing. Her mother has to prove she exists in order to find her. In a larger sense, Bunny is missing from the realm of acceptable children. Her mother must prove she has a right to legitimately exists--something the other mothers at the day care center do not have to do. Bunny's illegitamacy and the way this keeps her outside of the realm of 'normal' children is tied up in her abduction and in her mother's search for her. By the end of the novel finding Bunny Lake, proving she exists, will prove she has a right to exists as well.There really is much more to these pulp fiction stories than meets first meets the eye.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I gave my sister a copy of Bunny Lake is Missing because she liked the movie. (I've seen only the last half-hour or so.) It took her months to get around to reading it because she figured she already knew what happened. She told me that she figured the first difference, changing the setting from New York City to London, made sense because the film was British. As she read on, she discovered there were far greater differences, so many that having seen the film was no help at all in figuring out the novel. She said I could borrow it.I read only the first 19 pages when I picked it up. The next day, though, I read what was left in one go. My sister smugly asked, Couldn't put it down, could you? (Nod.)If you believe that there really is a three-year-old Bunny Lake, and that's cleverly left open to question, what Blanche goes through is horrifying. Her explanations are reasonable, but still raise suspicions in her listeners. In case you were born/grew up after the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s to 1980s, being an unwed mother was once considered very shameful. It's why the word 'bastard,' in its original sense of a person whose parents weren't married to each other, was such an insult. Blanche's mother seems unreasonable today, but she could have been worse. Mrs. Lake could have followed the custom of casting her daughter out of the family instead of joining her in exile in New York. Bunny's grandmother isn't available to corroborate Bunny's existence. Blanche refuses to give her old address. Is it because of something her mother did, or because there is no Bunny?Another, older, child goes missing and that boy's mother is just as frantic as Blanche. If you wonder why she felt she had to do what she does to prove that she's a decent woman, it makes sense if you read chapter 22, verses 23-24 of the Biblical book of Deuteronomy. (Verse 29 is even worse because that really was the best the poor girl could hope for back then. Thank God times have changed!)Speaking of changed times, the scene involving a doll hospital owner made me wish Blanche were living when women can learn how to fight. If she were, though, she wouldn't have felt the need to leave her hometown. Still, she's not helpless, as more than one of the persons who think she's insane will learn. By the way, the mask that Dr. Newhouse thinks about when he sees Blanche's lips, is L'Inconnue de la Seine. If you've taken a CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] course, you know her face as Rescue/Resusci/CPT Annie/Anne. The open-mouthed version of the manikin isn't as lovely as the original death mask, so I would suggest looking it up online.Bottom line: when it comes to figuring out what's going on, it doesn't matter if you read the book or watch the film first.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blanche Lake is not like the other mothers who come to collect their children at the local nursery school on New York's Upper East Side. She lives alone, has a job, and has never been married. It's the first day of school when this story begins, and Blanche is eager to see how her daughter, Bunny, has fared away from home. But her expectant waiting becomes a mother's most dreaded nightmare: Bunny never materializes. Neither teachers nor students recall the small girl, and soon Blanche is engaged in a frantic search for any trace of her missing daughter. And the worst part is . . . no one believes her.
Book preview
Bunny Lake Is Missing - Evelyn Piper
2
Marie was sitting behind the big desk happily stamping PAID over a huge sheet of newsprint spread before her. The teacher was at the window now, smoking a cigarette. She glanced up quickly as Blanche entered, then turned away again. (Looking out the window for Marie’s mother, wishing Marie’s mother would come and take her child home? Well, here was Bunny’s mother come to take her child home.)
Bunny was probably in the room behind the sliding doors.
"Your mommy will be here soon, Marie. You get the paper all stamped up, won’t you? Miss Benton isn’t here, if you want her."
No, it’s Bunny I want. Don’t you remember? You told me in the hall about the Threes being—topside?
Of course. It’s kind of dark in the hall and I didn’t . . . This is my first day here. I’m fresh from the Walton School in Chicago. The cement hasn’t hardened on our building yet—not that there is any—cement, I mean. All glass, of course. But, of course, what counts in a nursery school isn’t the bricks and mortar, is it?
Blanche said, Of course it isn’t.
She gestured toward the sliding doors. Have they put Bunny in there?
The kitchen and pantry are in there.
But she wet—and—
You’re the one who forgot to bring the extras? Oh, and she wet—then she could be in the infirmary. No, we call it the ‘quiet room,’ don’t we, Marie? Bunny must be in the ‘quiet room.’ It’s on the second floor, rear. I’d show you, but I don’t want to leave Marie alone.
Of course not.
But who was with Bunny? Second floor, rear. I went right and left, but not rear. Blanche smiled at Marie and went upstairs again.
The quiet room was quiet and empty. Although there was no suggestion of hospital about the small room, which had a cot with a cheerful plaid throw over it and a wicker chair and a table and gaily flowered draperies on the narrow window, hospital
was what came to Blanche’s mind. The teacher in the office didn’t know about it because they wouldn’t have come into her classroom and told her that a little girl called Bunny in Group Three had been taken sick and rushed to the hospital. The doctor had been called in and that was why the director, Miss Benton, wasn’t in her office. The director was the one who had taken Bunny to the hospital. They had tried to call her at home, and, of course, no one was there. (She had decided not to give them her business telephone until she could explain about that.) She hurried back downstairs to the office.
Blanche’s voice explaining her theory to the teacher was enough to frighten Marie, who stopped stamping PAID, threw the stamp on the floor, and climbed off the chair.
The teacher (as Blanche was happy to see, visualizing the director comforting Bunny in the hospital) scooped Marie up into her arms and, retrieving the stamp from the floor, sat down at the desk with Marie in her lap.
Let’s keep our voices even, shall we?
She renewed the ink on the stamp, stamped PAID hard, then held out the stamp to the child. (Marie had her thumb in her mouth.) Why do you think hospital?
Well, she isn’t here. Bunny. Anywhere I can see.
Gently does it!
Gently, she took Marie’s thumb out of her mouth. Which group did you say she was in?
Bunny is three.
Three is Ruth. She left, but—just a minute . . . You still have that corner to fix up, Marie.
She looked down at the child, noticing that her delicate mouth was quivering. Could you sit with Marie, Mrs.—
Lake.
Mrs. Lake, you sit with Marie and she’ll show you how to use the PAID stamp. Marie, you’ll show Bunny’s mommy, won’t you?
She stood up and waved Blanche into the seat, then put Marie on her lap. Please show Bunny’s mommy—I think Dorothy is in there having a cup of tea. She lives out in Scarsdale and waits for a certain train, anyhow. I’ll get Dorothy, maybe she knows—while you show Bunny’s mommy how to stamp, Marie.
Blanche hugged Marie, because she could feel her trembling. Marie had outgrown her baby fat; such a thin, rigid little girl! Blanche could feel her bones. She held Marie closely and dropped her chin gently onto the small, smooth head the way she did with Bunny sometimes. All little girls had hair like silk. All little girls sighed when they relaxed in your arms.
The door slid open and a young woman came out. I’m Dorothy Klein. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand . . .
I’m Bunny’s mother. Bunny Lake. I can’t seem to find Bunny anywhere in the place.
Bunny?
Felicia.
What’s the matter with Bunny? Bunny’s a fine name! Bunny isn’t in my group, and I thought that the Threes were all on their way home . . .
Marie screamed.
I’m sorry,
Blanche said. I must have squeezed her too tight. The Threes aren’t all on their way home, Miss Klein. Bunny isn’t.
Marie’s teacher said, Dorothy says your Bunny couldn’t be with Louise Benton—the director, Miss Benton—because Dorothy knows definitely that she’s at an agency trying to promote a cook. The one who was supposed to be here today didn’t turn up and there was quite a mess. It doesn’t seem likely that Miss Benton would take your Bunny along to the agency with her . . .
She saw Blanche bite her lips. "I suppose she could have . . ."
Why would she do that?
Dorothy asked. Where’s Elvira?
Gone home. And what would a Three be doing with the Fives? They’d murder her!
Do you think they did?
Blanche shook her head, laughing at herself. "I don’t mean murder, of course. I mean unless I’m mistaken, I did leave her in the wrong room with the bigger ones. Now she wasn’t laughing.
Do you think they could have hurt her?"
All I have to do is open my big mouth! Now, Mrs.—
Lake,
Blanche said. Lake.
We do believe in a certain amount of freedom here, Mrs. Lake, but we certainly don’t permit Fours or Fives to beat up on a Three!
I can’t get over the idea that Bunny’s been taken to a hospital.
Without notifying you?
Parents are notified before anything is done to any child.
Topside glanced out of the window, grabbed up her coat from a chair, and thrust her arms into it. There comes your mommy, Marie!
She said to Miss Klein, I’m afraid some other arrangement will have to be made about Marie after today. I have to get to 108th Street three times a week.
She showed her teeth. Pyorrhea! Isn’t that the mostest? Dorothy will get your trouble straightened out, Mrs. Lake. You have to hang around anyhow, don’t you, Dorothy?
She buttoned Marie’s jacket and scooped her up. Come on, we’ll beat Mommy to the door.
She carried Marie off and they heard the door slam.
Of course!
Dorothy said. I know! Gosh, I should! It’s happened before! Someone else called for Bunny!
She shook her head affirmatively more vigorously, to override Blanche’s head-shake. Take my word for it, Mrs. Lake, some member of your family came and took her home, and there you’ll find her all anxious to tell Mommy about her first day in school.
Nobody would have . . .
Dorothy snapped her fingers at Blanche. Right? I can tell by your expression that somebody would have, after all!
She walked toward the room beyond the sliding doors.
"I suppose it is possible that my mother could have—"
Your mother did! I haven’t taught for six years without knowing what grandmothers can do—their range is enormous!
She went into the other room and came back with her pocketbook, coat, and hat. You go on home and—if you’ll take my advice—give your mother hell. If she just came here without a word to you and nipped Bunny up without so much as a by-your-leave she should be given hell the first time, or it will go on happening.
She put the hat on. "Grandmothers have their uses and their abuses. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my train at Grand Central or my mother will give me hell! She held the front door open for Blanche.
Your mother will tell you that she never thought for a minute you’d be upset—suddenly couldn’t wait to hear how her granddaughter made out and got her afore you!"
It was sunny and October out on the street. Blanche stood still. Miss Klein gently pushed her by the shoulder, nodded, and hurried off.
The way home lay in the same direction Miss Klein had taken. Blanche had to walk west to First Avenue, but she didn’t want to keep the teacher any longer. She walked slowly to give Miss Klein a head start, and then began to run.
Something had made her mother change her mind and come back to the city. Any number of things could have, Blanche thought doubtfully. Once I know what it was, I’ll know that it was sensible—that I should have thought of it at once. And, if she had come back—as Miss Klein suggested—how furious Mother would have been when she came back and saw the mess I left this morning in the kitchen. Mother wouldn’t admit it, but part of the reason she must have decided to call for Bunny would be to have someone (even Bunny) to complain to. Mother doesn’t realize how much she complains about me. Bunny,
Mother would say, how in the world will Mommy manage when Granny is gone for good? Granny goes away and look how Mommy leaves this kitchen.
Mommy,
Bunny would have repeated. It would be all that she could understand of what Mother was saying. Bunny’s tiny perfect mouth rounding, saying Mommy.
You see what all this talk about being able to manage without me comes to, Bunny?
Mother would have said, plunging the breakfast dishes into the dishpan of soapy water as if she were drowning them.
Bunny would be waiting for her. Blanche caught a glimpse of the white fur in the toy-shop window. My pussy!
Bunny had said, pressing her nose against the window in an ecstasy of longing. She would buy it for Bunny now. She would go into the store now and buy it for Bunny, put it into her arms. (Oh, Mother!
Blanche whispered, running again. How could you do this to me? Didn’t you realize what it would mean for me to come for Bunny and not find her there?
)
Do you realize what things mean to me?
Mother would say. The white crescents of anger would appear around her nostrils as they always did when they got onto that subject. Do you realize what it means to me not to be able to hold up my head with my oldest friends? Forcing me to tell lies all over the place! Making me want to sell my own house where I’ve lived ever since your father and I were married! Needing to leave the place where your father is buried! Don’t you talk about not realizing things to me.
No, don’t talk about not realizing things. Best not to reproach Mother for taking Bunny without letting her know. Best not to buy the toy now. Waste time buying the toy. Best to hurry home as fast as she could and hold Bunny tight in her arms and let her cheek slide against her silk hair as she had done with Marie.
Blanche heard her heels on the pavement and they seemed such a slow beat. Surely she could run faster than that?
3
The self-service elevator was there for once, waiting, which looked as if Mother might have been the last person who used it. Most of the people in this house didn’t bother to press the button after they got out of the car, but Mother did. When Mother had come in, she must have lifted Bunny up and let her press the 5 button to take them up, and then let her press the M button, and that was why the elevator was waiting now. Mother was always sweet to Bunny. Mother had stood there patiently while Bunny watched the indicator light flash on in each of the little numbers. Mother had taken Bunny home from school because she loved her.
Blanche leaned against the back of the elevator, wishing it weren’t so slow. She rang the doorbell of the apartment and waited, quietly, so that she would hear the footsteps inside, but then called out, I’ve got my keys, Mother, don’t bother!
She gritted her teeth because her hand shook so badly that she could not open the catch of her pocketbook. It’s Mommy, Bunnsy! It’s just me, Mother!
She bit her lip and leaned her elbow against the side of the door to steady her hand, thinking that if anyone came out of the other apartments on the floor, they would think that the new sublet tenant of 5A was a fine one, coming back home so drunk at six o’clock in the evening that she wasn’t even capable of unlocking her door! Bunny!
she called, throwing the door open. Bunny! Mother!
4
I should have telephoned,
Blanche thought. Oh, why did I come all the way back? I should have telephoned first!
She would have to telephone the school now. Even though what was hardest was to be still even for a minute, she would telephone first. She walked to the telephone and lifted the receiver, then put it back. She didn’t know the number.
Blanche hurried to the rickety little desk to find the letter from the Benton School which had the telephone number printed on it—quicker than the directory with her hands so . . .
Not quicker, she thought, pulling at the right-hand drawer, which didn’t open easily. She had pulled it evenly, of course; the next thing would be the loose knob coming off in her hands. Always, always when you were in a rush! Telephone book, she thought, and picking it up dialed Information and then propped the phone between her shoulder and her neck so that her hands would be free to turn the pages. So thick, Blanche thought, so many people in Manhattan. I want the number of the Benton Nursery School on East Eighty-Third Street,
she said, turning pages as she spoke. A race between her hands and Information. She got there first and hung up. How annoyed Information would be.
The telephone rang and rang. "Telephome, Bunny said whenever she heard theirs ringing, and grinned proudly, showing all her perfect teeth, because she really knew better. She just said
telephome" because it made Blanche smile.
Blanche slammed down the receiver. Could Bunny have wandered out of the room that morning? Could Bunny have tried to follow her when she left? Unwilling to be deposited? Before the teacher came from around the L part? Because, if she had, before the teacher had even seen her . . . So that the teacher thought she had kept Bunny home after all? She should have talked with the teacher then and there, even if she was late, even if it had all been arranged so carefully. The children had seen Bunny; there had been several of them there—but too young to report? Even if it had been the Fours (but why the Fours?) she had left Bunny with, they were surely too young to report that a little dark girl had been left there by her mother while the teacher had been busy in the L part of the room. Too young to know that Bunny should have been stopped when she walked out after her mother?
But even if no one had seen Bunny going down—where? Down too far?
One—two—eight, ten,
Bunny always counted, going carefully downstairs.
Down one flight too many? There must be a basement in that horrible old brownstone house. Suppose Bunny had gone down into the basement? Fallen down the steps?
Why hadn’t she searched the place except for the classrooms?
She saw the policeman directing the traffic on Lexington Avenue. If no one was in the building when she reached it, she would get that policeman. Mother used to frighten her about policemen, telling her that they would put her in prison if she was such a bad girl, but the once she had heard Mother saying that to Bunny she had stopped that. So Bunny wouldn’t be afraid of a policeman.
Because Blanche wanted it so badly, as she walked—since by then she had had to stop running; her lungs were bursting—she could see the black of Bunny’s hair against the blue of the policeman’s uniform as he came up the cellar steps carrying her. Here’s your little girl safe and sound,
he said, and Blanche saw Bunny’s starfish hand reach up to touch the policeman’s shiny buttons. Bunny wouldn’t be afraid when that policeman found her, and Bunny wouldn’t have been afraid of the dark cellar either the way she, Blanche, used to be scared of the dark. Bunny had always had a night light, so Bunny wouldn’t have been afraid to go down into the dark cellar. And that is why a three-year-old child, perfectly conscious, completely unharmed, could have stayed in a dark cellar patiently waiting.
I wouldn’t have believed it possible,
the policeman would say, looking down at Bunny’s dark hair resting against his uniform and at her little hand admiringly fingering the brass buttons. Honestly,
the policeman would say, I wouldn’t have believed it! You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw her sitting there, not a scratch on her . . .
The front door of the school was locked. Blanche, leaning against it, breathing with difficulty, pressed the bell and kept her finger on it.
I wouldn’t have believed it,
the cop would say.
Did she believe it? Could she believe it? Safe and sound? Not a scratch on her? Blanche counted twenty-five as slowly as she could and took as deep breaths as she could before she began running for the policeman.
The people in New York City were no different from the people in Providence. Heads turned as she ran by, but in Providence someone would have asked her why she was running and could they help. Here, it seemed to her, now, the staring people were kept from asking by the fear that they would be made fools of if they should ask; that it would turn out to be some kind of trick, some new advertising scheme, some joke on them. But the police would help her, she thought. "Officer!