" Mr. Furrow jerked a thumb toward the mule in the back of the barn. "Rabbit'll kill anything comes near his carrot if he hasn't done with it. And he'll kick you if you make him go too fast in the field. I'd whip him, but he's so old a whipping might kill him, and he's our last and only mule. So we just keep away from his carrot and we keep it slow. That's the rules with Rabbit. "

― Trenton Lee Stewart , The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict (The Mysterious Benedict Society, #0)