On the day before Easter, when I woke up from a nap, I asked myself.  “What’s this?  No head, arms, legs.  And how’d I turn brown.  Mama! Daddy!”  I wait briefly, but no one comes.  What am I, this morning?  I wonder.  I’m not a boy anymore; I need help getting out of whatever this is.  “Josh, Josh, Josh, help me.”  I hear a clatter in the kitchen.  Must be mama fixing breakfast.  I draw a deep breath.  My favorite, oatmeal! I gotta get right.  Mama seldom fixes oatmeal.  I gotta get into the kitchen.

Gee whizz,  I’ve turned into something weird, and right before Easter.  I wanted to work for the Easter bunny.  Now I’ll be lucky to even get a colored egg.

I can jiggle back and forth.  Hey I’m moving.  Hot dog!  I rock back and forth, forth and back.  Suddenly, I’m falling out of bed.  Thump.  Cachunk.  Ouch!  My corner is dented and torn. 

Mama runs into the bedroom and yells, “Josh, what is this box doing here?”  She looks right at me while she talks.

My big brother races into the room.  “What box?”

“It’s a little too big to miss, wouldn’t you say, Josh?”  Asked mama.  “Now take it out to the garbage cans for the trash truck.  And do it right now because the truck is coming this morning.”

Josh picks the box up, and something in me jiggles.

“I’ve turned into a box.”  I groan.  “And I’m about to be swallowed up by that garbage truck!  And what’s jiggling inside of me?”  I scream so loud that my throat hurts.  But Josh doesn’t look as if he’s heard me.  He doesn’t answer.  And something, which Josh is wearing, presses into one of my sides.

When Josh puts me down, that something starts to rip up the whole side of me.  I scream.  Josh swears, gets completely down on the ground, and yanks his belt buckle from the side of this box that is me.  All the while, I scream and yell, “Stop.  Stop.  Stop.”  Can’t they hear or don’t they care anymore.  I’m sobbing.  The pain is awful; no one seems to hear me anymore.

Before Josh is inside the house, the air smells putrid.  That’s when I realize I’m just a hunk of garbage to everyone.  And I’ll be stinking like garbage if I don’t get away from these trashcans.  So I start my wiggling again, and I’m waddling my way toward the grass.  Once at the edge of the lawn, I try to lift myself a bit and wumbble onto the soft green grass.  But I can’t because the grass is just a tiny bit higher than the sidewalk.  This box body won’t lift that far.

I panic for fear of the garbage truck that I see making its way toward my house.  In the wink of an eye, the box gets out of my control.  It’s jumping and skidding until I feel myself falling over to one side.  It’s a graceful fall as the box caves out and I’m rolling as if a ball.  Finally!  I’m on the grass, but I have learned a new trick, so I rock back and forth until I roll over again.  Slowly, I make my way toward the house, hoping I can roll between the bushes where I won’t be seen.  Perhaps with a little time, I can turn myself back into the boy I was. 

Remembering those clumsy things inside of me, I discover that if I just slide those things to the side I want to roll onto, I can go anywhere fast.  The grass smells heavenly even as the crickets bounce against me.  So I just stop there and feel the crickets thumping into my sides. 

Before long, the garbage truck has come and gone without me.  And I feel the tickles of grass on my back.  For a short time, I lose my horror at being a box and just enjoy my summersaults in the open air.  Soon I realize mama should be sweeping the porch now.  But she hasn’t come out yet.

Far off, I hear sirens.  They get louder and louder until their blaze of red and blue swirls stop in front of my house.  The coppers rush to the front door and stay inside for a long time.  I can hear mama crying.  And I want to know why.  But I’d never make it up the steps, through the closed door, and into the house.  So I just stay where I am, even as the horizon swallows the sun.  I just lie in the cool of the night and even sleep a little.

Before I know it, midnight has come and gone; bunnies are all over the place, and they hop up to me, a box.  One bunny lifts his paw and gently rubs me until the box disappears, and I’m a boy again.  The bunnies smile and each one picks up two of the books that were inside me.  “The Mystery” and “Holiday Choir” along with the baskets and a toy will be given to the children this Easter.

I inspect myself as well as possible, and discover that I’m just as I was.  The Head Bunny says, “Quick into the house with you and sleep well.  In the morning, your basket and toys will be beside your bed.  In a wink of a bunny’s eye, I find myself in the bottom bunk of my bed.

Josh leans over from his top bunk and screams, “Mom, Dad, Timmy’s back.”

And that’s how Timmy became a part of the Easter Bunny Ritual.