Egg Decoration

By Tegan Elliott

The winter months were always the busiest for the Easter Bunny; that was when all the eggs were decorated. When the snow sprites and winter spirits woke and cam down from their hiding holes up North, he knew it was time to get to work. There was much to do before spring came. First, the chocolate eggs had to be collected from the growing patches. They were squirmy, uncoordinated things, unused to having to move without the help of their chocolate bunny caretakers, and quite fragile. They had to be dipped in a final coat before they could be painted, one that would become their shells.

When the shells were set, the eggs strong, they were walked to the dye fields where the flowers were waiting with their ladybug paint makers. All summer, the dyes were extracted, mixed, and stored away for the mist makers. They showered batches of eggs at the time, drying quickly in the warm sun patches across the den meadow. It was fast and messy, he always got paint in his fur when he passed.Past the sun patches were the caterpillars and their leaf stencils. Excellent designers, the caterpillars. They chose wonderful, fun designs, changing every year. Some years,

they brought back the classics for him. Stripes, zig-zags, polka dots. They picked what leaves from their trees were big enough, chewed their designs into them, and wrapped them around the eggs. The eggs were sent off, batch by batch, to the next set of mist makers, and the stencils were retrieved by the butterflies for the next batch. When the paint was set, the eggs were shepherded down the path to where the baskets were set to be filled. On this path, the Easter Bunny’s assistant bunnies watched over them, keeping them on track and checking for mistakes.

Every once in a while, a particularly clumsy egg would trip and have to be set back on its feet, or one got curious and tried to wander off. But there was no need to worry, his assistants were very good. He had not lost an egg in nearly a century, not since that dry spell in the twenties. When the eggs reached the baskets, they were loaded fifty to a basket.

The night before Easter, all the hard work paid off. The Easter Bunny and his assistants headed out, paws weighed down by their egg baskets, and they did their very best to set out the eggs. When the children went on their hunts in the morning, their smiles were worth every exhausting hour of work all year long.