Skippity was not himself.  That was quite clear.  His front ear drooped more than usual.  He was hardly ever in that state. And worse of all, he wasn’t a bit skippity. 

All he wanted to do was think ‘bout nothing in particular -- just things.  Why does a groundhog have a special shadow?  Why would Mrs. MacGregor bake Peter Rabbit’s father into a pie?  (He had taken the book by Beatrix Potter out of the rabbit’s free library, and didn’t put it down until he finished it.) Why couldn’t the MacGregors just eat sweet potato pie?  The more he thought about it, the more indignant he became. 

     The world was filled with things to worry about.  If rabbits were more important, he mused, such things wouldn’t happen. 

     Maybe one important rabbit could make the difference. Maybe that rabbit could be him.  I’ll ask my sister Hippity about this, he thought.  She’s very smart, she knows everything.

He twitched his nose at the thought, flipped his ear back, and did a small hop.  He was in good shape; everything was working.  Then with a skipperty, hipperty hop, he went in search of his sister. 

     There she was, sitting thoughtfully with a book, the little yellow bow on one ear in place.  He usually pulled it, but today he had things on his mind.  She looked up, “want a carrot stick,” she asked.  Their mother, always busy with her rabbit family chores, never forgot to keep a jar of carrot sticks handy. 

     “Thank you,” said Skippity, “they help me think.  It’s the carotene."
     “I know what you mean,” Hippity said.  “My think jar is getting quite full. Every time I can’t finish thinking about something, I write a note about it and put it in my jar,” she sighed.