part0014

“Oh no, don't eat me!” said seven-year-old Nicki, in a high-pitched voice, moving her chocolate bunny as if it were talking. “Don't eat my bunny ears!”

Brett, her little brother giggled and shoved some jelly beans into his mouth.

“It's not funny!” said Nicki as the bunny. “Please don't eat me! Noooooooo!” Nicki bit off the chocolate ears. “It hurts! It hurts!”

Their sister Rhonda, who was far too old for Easter baskets, looked away from her phone. “Eew! There's blood spraying everywhere!”

“No, there isn't,” said Nicki.

“There is! Look at all that blood squirting out of your chocolate bunny's ears! It's getting all over everything! Eat it over the sink!”

“Mom!” Nicki called out. “Rhonda is doing gallows humor again!”

“Rhonda! Stop being morbid!”

“You were the one doing a funny voice while you ate its ears,” Rhonda told Nicki. “Why are you amused by its suffering? Can you even imagine the sheer horror of having somebody chew your ears right off your head? Your action today is going to haunt your dreams for years.”

“Mom! She's still doing it! ”

“Rhonda! Save it for Halloween!”

“Fine, whatever,” said Rhonda, looking back at her phone. “Why don't you eat its butt next?”

“I will!” Nicki did the high-pitched voice again. “Oh no, don't eat my fluffy tail! I'll do anything! Please! Nooooooo!” Nicki bit off the chocolate bunny tail, while Brett giggled some more.

Nicki and Brett, not known for their self-control, ate candy until they made themselves sick. Brett also ate a couple of strands of the plastic Easter grass that lined his basket.

“Aren't you guys going to do the Easter egg hunt?” Rhonda asked.

“Easter egg hunt! Easter egg hunt!” Brett shouted.

“The Easter Bunny went to a lot of work hiding all of them,” said Rhonda. “If you don't look for them, he'll take it as a personal insult. You don't want to disrespect the Easter Bunny.”

Nicki and Brett jumped to their feet. They ran around the house (wobbling a bit because of their queasiness) searching for the colorful eggs.

“We can't find any!” said Nicki, a few minutes later.

“What makes you think they're inside?” Rhonda asked.

The kids hurriedly ran outdoors to continue their search.

Mom walked into the living room. “Rhonda, thanks again for volunteering to hide the eggs. That was nice of you.”

“Oh, sure, no problem. Happy to do it.”

After about ten minutes, Nicki came back inside. “We can't find any of them. ”

“Did you even look?”

Rhonda clucked her tongue. “The Easter Bunny doesn't like slackers. He went to all the trouble of setting up a fun Easter egg hunt for you, and you're spitting in his face. Is the problem that you hate the Easter Bunny?”

“No! We love the Easter Bunny!”

“You have a funny way of showing it. If I were the Easter Bunny—and you can thank baby Jesus that I'm not—I'd be devastated to find out that a little girl gave up on me so quickly. I'd cry bunny tears and I'd slink off to my dark, damp bunny hole and just sit there by myself, feeling lonely and unloved. I hope the Easter Bunny isn't a cutter.”

“What's a cutter?” asked Nicki.

“That's enough,” said Mom. “Rhonda's only teasing.”

“Teasing? She eats the chocolate but doesn't want to do any of the work. She's in debt to the Easter Bunny for the candy she ate. Unless she wants him to take the chocolate back out of her stomach, she'd better get out there and find those eggs.”

Nicki hurried back outside.

“I know it's fun for you to pick on your brother and sister,” said Mom, “but I think you're taking the joke a little too far.”

“They believe that a giant, magical rabbit gave them free candy. The joke had gone too far long before I got involved.”

Mom smiled. “Fair enough. Just don't traumatize them, okay? I'm the one who has to pay the therapy bills. ”

“All right, all right, I'll behave.”

Another ten minutes passed before Nicki and Brett came back inside. “We can't find any of them!” said Nicki.

“Not a single one?” asked Rhonda.

“Wow. That's not going to make the Easter Bunny very happy. Did you even look?”

“We looked and looked and looked! It's not our fault!”

Rhonda shook her head sadly. “He's not a bunny you want to disappoint. But I'm sure he'll be okay with it, if you really did do your best.”

“Is the Easter Bunny sure he really hid the eggs?” Mom asked.

“Of course he is. The Easter Bunny isn't a total jerk. The eggs are out there, waiting to be discovered. It's just a shame that some children can't be bothered to look.”

“We did look!” Nicki insisted. “We looked all over!”

“If the Easter Bunny gazes deep into your soul, will he believe you?”

Nicki and Brett went back outside.

“You did hide the eggs, right?” Mom asked.

“Do you think maybe you hid them too well?”

“Shouldn't we challenge them? What kind of adults will they grow up to be if everything is just handed to them?”

“I get what you're saying,” said Mom. “But that's not really the point of an Easter egg hunt. If they've been looking for half an hour and haven't found a single one, you're not really being fair.”

“Should I go out and tell them it was all a scam? End their childhoods early?”

“No. Maybe just give them some hints.”

“They'll know that the Easter Bunny and I were in collusion. How do we explain that? How would I have that kind of information?”

“They're children, Rhonda. You can figure it out.”

“All right. I accept no responsibility if their world becomes less filled with wonder.” Rhonda got up from the couch and went out into the front yard, where Nicki and Brett were looking through some bushes. “Find anything?” she asked.

“No,” said Brett.

“The Easter Bunny is getting madder and madder with every minute. Honestly, it makes me nervous to be around you. I hope he doesn't take it out on me, too.”

“But we've looked everywhere !” said Nicki.

“Everywhere? Really? Are you telling me that you looked on the moon?”

“You know what I meant! ”

“I do, but does the Easter Bunny? He's very literal.”

“What does 'literal' mean?”

“Are you really going to waste time asking for definitions? My God, he could sink his fangs into your succulent flesh any moment now.”

“He doesn't have fangs!”

Rhonda gave Nicki a very serious look. “Don't let him hear you saying that. He's very proud of his fangs.”

“You're making all of this up. I'm going back inside.”

Rhonda nodded. “You may be right. I may be playing a joke on both of you. And if you want to bet your lives on that… well, I understand. It's hard work, looking for Easter eggs. It's not worth the bother if you're one hundred percent positive that I'm making all of this up. I know that if I were absolutely, completely, unquestionably certain that somebody was playing a joke on me, I sure wouldn't be out here looking for eggs.”

“So what I'm saying is that, yes, I was just playing a joke, and probably nobody forced me to say that. You can call off the search. I'm sure everything will be fine.”

Nicki and Brett glanced at each other, then resumed the hunt.

Three hours later, they'd found nothing.

“What if the Easter Bunny forgot to hide them?” asked Nicki, with a sniffle .

“Are you accusing the Easter Bunny of having Alzheimer's? Can you prove it?”

The door opened and Mom stepped outside. “Time to come in now.”

“But we can't!” said Nicki.

“Yes, you can,” said Rhonda. “I made it all up. The Easter Bunny doesn't care if you find his eggs or not. You guys are so dumb.”

“He's going to sink his fangs into our flesh!”

“Did you hear that, Mom?” asked Rhonda. “They don't know how bunny teeth work.”

“Enough,” said Mom. “This has crossed the line. Nicki, Brett, your sister thought she was being funny, but she was just being mean. Everybody come in. It's time for dinner.”

Nicki and Brett were still feeling sick to their stomachs from all the candy, but they managed to eat an acceptable portion of their ham. That night, they lay in bed in the room that they shared.

“I wish we'd found the eggs,” said Nicki.

“Me too,” said Brett.

“She was just trying to scare us.”

“We'd better sneak out and look some more. I don't want to go to sleep if the Easter Bunny is mad at me. ”

They quietly got out of bed and crept out of their room. Nicki picked up a flashlight and they very, very slowly opened the front door. They'd get in a lot of trouble if Mom caught them, but at least Mom wouldn't sink her teeth into their necks.

They searched for the eggs until Brett was so tired, that he couldn't stand up any longer. Why had the Easter Bunny made them so hard to find? Did he want to eat little children? Was he that hungry? Were they out of bunny food where he lived?

Nicki and Brett snuck back inside. Surely, the Easter Bunny would be impressed by how long they'd searched. He couldn't be mad, not when they'd put so much effort into playing his game, right?

Though Brett fell asleep quickly, Nicki spent the entire night staring at the ceiling, cringing at every sound. She thought she saw bunny ear shadows, darting across her bedroom wall, but decided that it was her imagination.

She was exhausted the entire next day at school. She even fell asleep once, snapping awake when Ms. Green whacked a ruler on her desk.

“I talked to the Easter Bunny,” Rhonda told her that evening, when Mom was in the bathroom. “He's not happy.”

“I know you looked. That's why I put in a good word for you. But those eggs are out there, and as long as they go unfound, his rage will continue to grow. I asked if it was okay for Mom and I to help you, and he said no, absolutely not. In fact, he said that if you tell Mom you're still looking for them, he'll drag you into the pits of Hell.”

“The Easter Bunny's from hell?”

“That's what he said. I don't believe him. You shouldn't, either. I'm sure you're not scared of Hell, anyway.”

“There's nowhere left to look!”

Rhonda shrugged. “Those eggs are hidden somewhere on our property. If you want to give up, that's your choice.”

Nicki chose to search.

Would the Easter Bunny have hidden them on the roof? Nicki couldn't imagine such a thing, but maybe she'd ask Rhonda to help her get the ladder out of the garage.

“They're not on the roof!” said Rhonda, later. “What are you, stupid? He doesn't want you to fall and break your neck! Jeez!”

Several days passed. Nicki didn't know what sanity was, but she could feel it slipping away. When Mom commented on the dark circles under her eyes, Nicki told her she was having nightmares, which was true, but she lied and said she didn't remember what they were about.

“It's been almost a week,” said Brett, as they lay in bed unable to sleep. “He would've eaten us by now, wouldn't he?”

“Yes,” said Nicki. And, she mostly believed that. But she didn't know what kind of schedule the Easter Bunny kept. If he only worked one night a year, that left a lot of free time. Maybe he was in no rush. Or, maybe, he had a lot of lazy children to eat .

On Friday night, Nicki was so tired that she almost walked into the wall. As she stumbled past Rhonda's bedroom, she heard her talking to a friend on the phone.

“My brother and sister are so dumb,” she said. “You won't believe this…”

Nicki stood there for several minutes, getting madder and madder. When she heard Rhonda end the call, she hurried into her own bedroom.

At two in the morning, Nicki poked Rhonda in the chest with her index finger. “Get up,” she whispered.

Rhonda sat up. “What do you want?”

“Come outside. It's important.”

“Go back to bed.”

Nicki shook her head. “We need your help.”

Rhonda pulled the blankets over her head. Nicki tugged them back down.

“Fine, fine, whatever,” said Rhonda. She got out of bed and quietly followed Nicki out of the house. Nicki led her to the backyard, where Brett was kneeling in the garden.

“We found them,” said Nicki.

“Oh, yeah?” Rhonda grinned and walked over to Brett. “Nice… oh, God, those things reek !”

“You buried them,” said Nicki. “All in one pile. I don't think that's very fair.”

“Hey, don't blame me. The Easter Bunny must've— ”

Rhonda pitched forward as Nicki shoved her from behind. She was able to break her fall with her hands, but now she was inches from the appalling odor, a smell so wretched it made her eyes water.

Nicki pushed her face into the pile of rotten eggs. The colorful shells cracked, slicing Rhonda's face as she plunged into the gooey mess. Watery egg slime went deep into her nostrils. She vomited, but didn't dare open her mouth.

“You made me scared of the Easter Bunny,” said Nicki. “That wasn't nice.”

Rhonda struggled to get free, but the smell was so overpowering that she thought she was going to pass out. A large piece of shell went into her right eye, and she let out a muffled scream that immediately made her suffering much worse.

“You should let her go now,” said Brett.

“I will when I know she's learned her lesson.”

“Mom's gonna be mad.”

“I don't care,” said Nicki, shoving Rhonda's face even further into the muck. Awful stuff went down her throat as a shell punctured her other eye.

Two minutes after Rhonda stopped moving, Nicki decided that her sister had learned her lesson.