“Excited!” Zoë squealed, barely able to stand still. Not that she was really standing. She was a superhero and could fly. So she was floating in place like a fidgety, excited, baby-sized helicopter.

She and her siblings were waiting for the Read and Seek Egg Hunt to begin behind the Traverse City Public Library. Dozens of other kids crouched to their right and left, all waiting just as impatiently. Hurry up already!

Andrew gave Zoë a playful nudge. “Don’t you mean egg-cited,” he smirked.

Zoë and Abigail didn’t share their brother’s humor. Easter was tomorrow, and they’d had it with their brother’s egg jokes.

“Your brain is scrambled,” Abigail groaned.

“Egg-straterrestrial,” Zoë said, meaning she thought Andrew was an alien.

The girls, you see, had had it with Andrew’s egg jokes because they knew them all. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, they say, and you definitely can’t out-yolk—-oops, joke-—a kid on Easter weekend.

Mrs. Dewey, the director of the library, cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. It worked, too, but the fact that she was wearing a pink bunny costume didn’t hurt.

“Remember, children,” she said. “The winner of the egg hunt will receive a set of autographed Knightscares books.”

A cheer went up through the crowd. Hunting Easter eggs was fun, but autographed books didn’t rot and turn your bedroom into a nuclear wasteland if you forgot them under your bed.

“On your mark!” shouted Mrs. Dewey when the crowd quieted.

“Get set!” said Mr. Decimal, the children’s librarian. He was also wearing a costume. He was dressed as a giant carrot.

“Hunt!” they cried together, slapping closed the covers of two thick encyclopedias. The noise the books made resembled the firing of a starter’s pistol at a track-and-field event.

Bang! GO!

Off they went. Baskets in hand, dozens kids tore out of the starting gates like wild-eyed Little Red Riding hoods running from the wolf. Some squealed, some giggled, some even tripped and fell. But all of them had the same goal in mind: Find eggs in two ways—fast and often.

The Read and Seek Egg Hunt was on!

End of preview
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Copyright © 2008 Sigil Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

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