Ginger had a special reason for loving Easter. She had been born on Easter Sunday. She liked to imagine that on the morning she arrived, the world had already been decorated for her. There had been colored eggs and chocolate rabbits, baskets tied with ribbons, new flowers pushing through the ground, and everyone dressed in their Sunday clothes. Of course, Ginger couldn't remember any of it, but she liked the idea just the same.

And there was one part of Easter she loved more than anything else: the Easter egg hunt.

Ginger took egg hunting seriously. She knew all the places grown-ups thought were clever. Behind flowerpots. Under porch steps. Inside watering cans. Between the branches of bushes. Once she had found an egg tucked into an old boot, and another year someone had balanced one on top of a fence post where all the children had walked past it three times.

This Easter, the family gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's house.. The grown-ups hid brightly colored eggs all over the yard while Ginger and the other children waited inside. There were pink eggs, yellow eggs, blue eggs, purple eggs, and one especially beautiful green egg with tiny white flowers painted around the middle.

Ginger saw that one before the hunt even began. One of her aunts carried it outside while everyone else was busy counting baskets. Ginger pressed her nose against the window and watched her aunt walk past the porch, around the side of the house, and toward the back of the yard. Then her aunt disappeared.

Ginger smiled. She was going to find that egg first.

“All right!” someone finally called. “Come and get them!”

The door flew open and children poured into the yard. Ginger ran straight toward the back. She found a yellow egg beneath a bush and dropped it into her basket. There was a pink one beside the garden hose and a blue one tucked behind a rock. She spotted a purple egg almost completely buried in the grass.

But she wasn't looking for those. She wanted the green one.

Ginger searched behind the shed. Nothing. She looked beneath the picnic table and around the woodpile. She checked every flowerpot along the back of the house.

No green egg.

Meanwhile, the other children were shouting whenever they found something.

“I got one!”

“There's one over here!”

“I found two!”

Ginger hardly noticed. She crawled beneath a bush and came out with leaves in her hair. She looked behind Grandma's old metal wash tub. She even peered into a hole near the fence until a lizard shot out and nearly made her fall backward.

Still no green egg.

Soon the yard became quieter. The easy eggs were gone. Then the harder ones disappeared too. The children gathered on the porch and began counting.

Nine. Eleven. Fourteen.

Ginger had twelve, but she wasn't interested in counting them.

“Did anybody find the green one?” she asked.

Everyone looked into their baskets. No one had.

Ginger's aunt frowned. “I know I hid it.”

“Where?” Ginger asked.

Her aunt smiled. “I'm not telling.”

That was exactly the answer Ginger wanted. The hunt wasn't over.

While everyone else opened jelly beans and traded chocolate rabbits, Ginger went back into the yard. This time she searched differently. She stopped looking where someone would hide an egg. Instead, she tried to remember exactly what she had seen from the window.

Her aunt had crossed the yard, passed the picnic table, gone around the side of the shed, and then disappeared.

Ginger followed the same path slowly. She passed the picnic table, went around the side of the shed, and stopped near the old lilac bush at the back fence. She remembered seeing her aunt bend down somewhere around here.

Ginger pushed aside one branch and then another. There were weeds, old leaves, and a rusty bucket half hidden beneath the bush. She crouched lower and peered underneath.

Something moved.

A small brown rabbit darted from beneath the lilac and disappeared through a gap in the fence.

Ginger jumped. “Oh!”

She nearly went after it, but then she noticed a shallow hollow beneath the branches. It was lined with grass and soft fur, and tucked inside were three tiny baby rabbits.

Ginger froze. She knew enough not to touch them.

Very slowly, she backed away. That was when something green caught her eye.

There it was.

The green Easter egg with the tiny white flowers.

Her aunt had hidden it beneath a clump of grass on the other side of the lilac bush. It wasn't in the rabbit's nest at all. But to reach it, Ginger would have to crawl beneath the branches, right past the babies.

Ginger looked at the egg and then at the nest. She could get it. She knew she could.

From the other side of the fence, the mother rabbit appeared again. She sat perfectly still, watching Ginger.

Ginger slowly stood up.

“You can have this part of the yard,” she whispered.

When she returned to the porch, everyone wanted to know what had happened.

“Well?” her aunt asked. “Did you find it?”

Ginger shook her head. “Nope.”

Her aunt looked surprised. “You gave up?”

Ginger glanced toward the old lilac bush.

“Nope.”

That evening, after everyone had gone home and the yard was quiet again, the green Easter egg with the tiny white flowers remained exactly where Ginger's aunt had hidden it.

Nobody found it.

At least, that was what Ginger told everyone.

Because Ginger had found something much better than an Easter egg. And this time, she was perfectly happy to leave both of them exactly where they were.