The Last Egg Hunt

Margot pressed her nose against the kitchen window and watched her dad walk across the backyard with a big wicker basket, tucking bright plastic eggs behind flowerpots and under bushes and inside the crook of the old oak tree.

She knew she wasn't supposed to be watching.

She also knew she wasn't supposed to care.

Margot was eight now. Eight and three-quarters, actually, which she had reminded everyone about at least twice this week. Eight-and-three-quarters-year-olds did not hunt for Easter eggs. That was for little kids. That was for her brother, Benji, who was five and still believed a real actual bunny hopped into their yard every spring and left candy behind like some kind of chocolate-delivering trespasser.

Margot knew better.

She knew it was Dad with the basket. She knew the eggs were filled with jelly beans from the bag Mom hid on top of the refrigerator. She knew everything, because she was practically nine.

And yet.

Her eyes followed a shiny purple egg as Dad nestled it between two rocks near the garden. Purple was her favorite color. It had always been her favorite color. She wondered what was inside that one.

"Margot! Breakfast!" Mom called from the other room.

Margot unstuck her nose from the window — it left a little smudge — and walked to the table like someone who had not been spying at all.

Benji was already there, vibrating. That was the only word for it. He was sitting in his chair, but every part of him was moving — his legs were kicking, his fingers were drumming, his eyebrows were bouncing up and down.

"Margot, Margot, Margot," he said. "The Easter Bunny came. He CAME. There are eggs EVERYWHERE. I can see them from here. Well, I can see one. It's yellow. I want that one. Can I have that one? When can we go? Can we go NOW?"

"After breakfast," said Mom, setting down a plate of pancakes shaped like eggs. She was very committed to the theme.

Margot sat down and poured a careful river of syrup on her pancakes. She was not vibrating. She was calm. She was cool. She was eight and three-quarters.

"Aren't you excited?" Benji asked, leaning so far toward her that his elbow landed in the syrup.

"It's just eggs, Benji," Margot said.

"Just EGGS?" Benji looked at her like she had said something in a foreign language. "They have CANDY in them."

"I know what's in them."

"Then how are you not EXCITED?"

Margot shrugged one shoulder. Just one. That was the move of someone very mature.

Dad came in through the back door, pretending he hadn't been outside at all. "Morning, kiddos! Beautiful day. No reason. Just a regular Sunday."

"It's EASTER," Benji shrieked.

"Is it?" Dad said, winking at Mom.

Margot almost smiled. Almost.

After breakfast, Mom handed Benji a little blue bucket. He grabbed it and rocketed toward the back door like he'd been fired out of a cannon.

"Margot, you want a bucket?" Mom asked.

And here was the moment. The terrible moment. Because the answer inside Margot's chest was YES — absolutely, give me the biggest bucket you have. She wanted the purple egg between the rocks. She wanted to find every single one. She wanted to run around the yard in the sunshine feeling that fizzy feeling of spotting a bright flash of color hidden in an unexpected place.

But the answer that came out of her mouth was: "No thanks. I'm just gonna sit on the porch and read."

Mom looked at her for a second. Not a long second, but a noticing second. Then she said, "Okay, sweetie," and followed Benji outside.

Margot grabbed her book and went to the porch. She sat on the top step. She opened the book to a random page. She did not read a single word.

Instead, she watched.

Benji was tearing around the yard like a golden retriever who had just discovered that squirrels exist. He found the yellow egg immediately — it was right there in the open, practically glowing — and he screamed like he had discovered buried treasure.

"I FOUND ONE! I FOUND ONE! LOOK! YELLOW!"

He held it above his head with both hands like a trophy.

Margot's mouth twitched.

Benji dove behind the big hydrangea bush and came out with a green egg and a leaf stuck to his forehead. He found a red one in the rain gutter, and a blue one under the garden gnome that Margot had always thought looked a little spooky.

Each time, he screamed. Each time, he held the egg up for everyone to see. Each time, Margot felt that fizzy feeling rise up inside her like soda bubbles, and each time she pushed it back down and stared harder at her book — which she was definitely holding upside down by now.

Then Benji stopped. He was standing near the old oak tree, looking up. Way up.

"There's one up THERE," he said, pointing. "On the branch. I can't reach it!"

Dad walked over and looked. "Hmm. That is high up."

"I can't get it," Benji said, and his voice wobbled. When you're five, an unreachable egg is a genuine tragedy.

Margot looked up from her upside-down book. The egg in the tree was orange, sitting in a little nook where two branches split apart. It wasn't that high, actually — not for someone with longer arms.

She put her book down.

"I could get it," she said. "If you want."

Benji turned around, his eyes the size of the eggs he'd been collecting. "Would you?!"

Margot walked across the yard. She told herself she was just helping. She was being a good big sister. This was a service, not participation.

She reached up on her tiptoes, stretching her fingers toward the branch. She could just barely touch the egg. She pushed up a little higher, her sneakers pressing into the soft grass, and her fingers closed around the smooth plastic.

She pulled it down.

And something happened.

The egg was warm from the sun. It was light and rattled gently in her hand, and the orange was so bright it almost hummed, and for just a second she felt it. That fizzy feeling. Not pushed down. Not shoved away. Just — there.

She handed the egg to Benji.

"ORANGE!" he screamed, and shoved it in his bucket.

Margot stood there by the tree.

"I think there might be more he can't reach," Dad said casually, not looking at her directly — the way you don't look directly at a deer you don't want to scare away.

Margot put her hands in her pockets. "I guess I could help him look. Just to help."

"Just to help," Dad agreed.

So Margot helped. She checked behind the tall flowerpots where Benji couldn't see. She peeked under the wheelbarrow. She found a pink egg wedged in the fence that Benji had walked right past three times.

"This one's yours," she said, handing it to him.

"You should keep one!" Benji said.

"No, that's okay—"

"KEEP IT." He shoved the pink egg into her hand with the force of a tiny bulldozer.

Margot held the pink egg. It rattled.

She looked around the yard. The sun was warming her shoulders. The grass smelled like spring. Somewhere nearby, a bird was singing a song that sounded like it was showing off.

"There are twelve eggs total," Dad said, leaning against the porch railing. "You've found ten."

Two more. Margot's eyes swept the yard. She spotted a glint of silver behind the watering can.

"Benji — by the watering can. Go look."

Benji gasped and ran. "SILVER! A SILVER ONE!"

One more.

Margot's eyes went to the rocks near the garden. Her heart did a little skip. The purple egg. It was still there, right where Dad had put it, tucked between the two big stones, half-hidden by a clump of clover.

She walked toward it slowly. Benji was busy shaking every egg in his bucket, trying to figure out which ones had chocolate and which had jelly beans.

Margot crouched down. The purple egg sat there, glowing in the morning light like a tiny jewel. She picked it up.

"Found it," she said. Quietly. Not a scream. Not a shout. Just — found it.

She sat down right there in the grass and cracked the purple egg open. Inside were three jelly beans — grape, her favorite — and a little folded piece of paper. She unfolded it.

In Dad's scratchy handwriting, it said: This one's for you, Margot.

She looked over at Dad on the porch. He was smiling. Not a teasing smile. Not an I-told-you-so smile. Just a Dad smile.

Margot ate one grape jelly bean. She put the other two in her pocket for later. She sat in the grass with the sun on her face and the purple egg in her hand, and she let the fizzy feeling stay exactly where it was.

Benji ran over and flopped down next to her. "Best Easter EVER," he announced.

Margot leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the big blue sky through the branches of the old oak tree.

"Yeah," she said. "It really was."