"I got one!" Mia said, holding up a painted egg she'd plucked from the bushes.

"I got two!" I said, picking up two plastic ones from under the porch.

We ran around the yard collecting eggs and stopped only when both our baskets were full.

After that, we ran past the kitchen where our mom and some aunts we didn't know were talking, upstairs into to Mia's room, and dumped our baskets into large-- yet separate-- piles on the floor.

Half the eggs were plastic and solidly colored in pastels. Those ones were stuffed and hidden by mom and were full of candy. We traded those; I hated fruity candy and Mia hated plain chocolate. But the other eggs, the ones mom didn't hide and had no idea existed, were real eggs and with pictures on them painted with real paint.

"What's inside them?" I said.

"I don't know!" Mia said. "The Easter bunny left them."

She cracked open one with a school of fish painted on it, and three tiny fish spilled out and swam through the air. I opened one with birds, and a dove flew out, went around the room, and then flew out the window. Ones with dragons on them had tiny dragons that hid under the bed or jumped on the dressers. The ones with pirate ships left piles of tiny gold coins. Ones with flowers spilled out nice smelling petals and leaves, and ones painted to look like jewels dumped out jewelry.

"Here," I said, giving Mia one with a unicorn painted on it.

"I think I'll open it later," she said, putting it in her shelf. "It's too pretty to open."

We chased dragons and ate chocolate until mom called us down to dinner.

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