An Expedition--with a Kangaroo.

A 6-foot Tall...

"Where do you think this tree is from, Heather? It looks strangely familiar, like I've seen it somewhere before...maybe once upon a dream? See what I did there?"

"Kayleigh, no. We have to find the owner of the snowglobe, pronto." my sister responded tersely. It was evident that she didn't want to deal with my so-called 'nonsense' anymore.

"Come on, Heather! Use your imagination!" I said. "Live a little—if this isn't magic, I don't know what it is,"

"Stop thinking about magic all the time! When things can be scientifically proven, we rely on the facts."

"Or maybe you fail to see that fairies change the seasons, and they may be late in spreading Spring because something came up–"

"We never see them. How do you expect that to be true?" And to my surprise, Heather sighed, almost dejectedly. Then, she looked at me sternly. "Once again, if we have facts to prove it, like the Earth's rotation and its position relevant to the Sun on different times of the year, then we know that the assumptions of fairies changing the seasons—" Heather gestured passively to the snowglobe in my hands– "Are untrue."

"Then what's up with Australia and their weird weather?"

"Australia's in the Southern Hemisphere, and the USA is in the Northern Hemisphere. The tilt of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun affects their weather, hence the opposite seasons. NOT because the fairies don't have time to change the seasons in a few months!" Heather shouted. "Enough about your outlandish assumptions about how the fairies want us to believe those scientifically proven truths!" 

However, I had turned away from my little sister and began observing the snowglobe. "What if the fairies do change the seasons? This could be theirs—"

"I said stop, Kayleigh!" With that, Heather reached her arm over to the snowglobe and knocked it out of my hands, and the snowglobe clattered to the floor. My hands shot out to catch it, but I was too slow—the glass had broken into tiny pieces.

Both of us were seething and furious, so we glared at each other. "You made this happen!" We shouted.

However, the animosity between us didn't last long. Suddenly, the house started to shake, and at first I thought it was an earthquake. We'd trained for those at school, so I ran to one of the walls of the attic and pulled Heather along with me. I pushed my hands and feet into it as hard as I could. But this wasn't a normal earthquake: when I managed to look out the window, none of the other houses outside were shaking. As the trembling got more and more intense, a hole opened in the middle of the attic floor, and from it rose...

We weren't even sure what it was. A 6-foot-tall wolf? Alien? 

"Well, this sure isn't Jamie's house..." the creature said, looking at the two of us.

"A bunny?" Heather looked at the 'thing' quizzically.

"That's right, shiela." The foreboding creature responded with a thick Australian accent, and I took a step back in response, pulling Heather along with me. 

"Who are you?" I asked, trying to put on a brave face. 

The creature just shrugged. "Why, your sister answered correctly just now—I'm a bunny. And since you can see me, that means you believe in..."

"The Easter Bunny!" I shouted.

Said Easter Bunny snapped his fingers at us. "Exactly." he grinned. "My name is E. Aster Bunnymund, also known as the Easter Bunny. Now, I'm terribly sorry that I can't stay for long, but would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of Jamie's house?"

"He looks more like a kangaroo to me," Heather whispered, and I burst out laughing. 

"A kangaroo?!"

E. Aster Bunnymund glared at us. "You may call me Aster, you may call me Bunny, you may call me Easter Bunny, but you CANNOT call me Kangaroo."

"What if we do, Kangaroo?" Heather smiled mischievously. 

"So help me, Frost!" Bunny shouted at the window, and we started laughing. I glanced at my little sister, who seemed to be enjoying herself in the presence of the humongous Kangaroo/Easter Bunny.

"Wait, why do you want to go to Jamie's house anyway?" Heather frowned at the 'kangaroo'. 

"Well..." he shrugged. "What if I told you he and I were friends?"

"Oh, right." I recalled. "I would definitely Believe that—Jamie and his friends helped you bring back Belief to the world a few Easters ago, right?" 

Bunny looked startled. "And how would you know?"

"Well, you're not the only one with 'secrets'--I'll have you know that Pippa and I are best friends," I stated matter-of-factly. "I wish I could have joined you that night, but I was stuck at home with a fever and obviously couldn't go out coughing and sneezing like that."

"Of course," Bunny nodded understandingly. 

I smiled falteringly, "I really wished I could have joined them. But then again, they said that all the kids were having nightmares all over the world, but I still remember having a wonderful dream of fairies and a gigantic tree of some sort. My friends say it's because my system of Belief is different from theirs—they think that only the Guardians exist, and Mother Nature is in charge of changing the seasons, but I think the fairies play a part in switching the seasons. Mostly because they said Mother Nature was very responsible, and fairies...well, some get slightly out of hand. Oh no, have I talked too much?"

Bunny chuckled. "No, not at all. That was interesting." He turned to Heather who had come over to tap Bunny's paw (his shoulder was too far up to reach), and pointed to the broken snowglobe lying on the floor. "Is there supposed to be a light in there?" she asked.

"By golly, that's one of North's," Bunny remarked, astonished. He put his paws in front of both of us, and we slowly backed away from the broken glass.

And sure enough, there was a beam of light shining out of the broken snowglobe.