The Easter Egg Hunt at Primrose Farm

In the village of Little Barton, where the hedgerows were just beginning to burst into green and the fields were full of newborn lambs that wobbled about on legs that had not quite decided what they were doing yet, there lived a boy named Oliver. Oliver was nine years old, had a mop of brown hair that never lay flat no matter what his mum tried, and was completely and utterly mad about Easter.

Not just because of the chocolate, though he would be the first to admit that the chocolate was a very significant part of it. He loved the whole feeling of Easter. The way winter finally gave up and let spring take over. The way the mornings got lighter and the evenings stretched out longer. The way the garden suddenly went from grey and bare to full of daffodils almost overnight, as though someone had crept round in the dark and planted yellow sunshine everywhere. He loved the smell of fresh grass after rain and the sound of birds singing from before sunrise, filling the whole world with noise before most people had even opened their eyes.

But most of all, every single year without fail, Oliver loved the Easter egg hunt at Primrose Farm.

Primrose Farm sat at the edge of Little Barton, a rambling, cheerful place with a red barn, a duck pond, three dogs of various sizes, and more chickens than anyone had ever bothered to count properly. It belonged to the Hartley family, and every Easter Sunday, Farmer Hartley and his wife June hid dozens of chocolate eggs all across the farm for the children of the village to find. They hid them in the barn, in the hedges, in the old stone walls, in the flower beds, in the duck pond reeds, and once, memorably, inside a wellington boot that was hanging on the fence post by the gate. The children were given wicker baskets lined with yellow tissue paper and sent off to find as many as they could.

Oliver had won the Easter egg hunt three years in a row.

He was very proud of this. He had a system. He always started at the far end of the farm and worked his way back towards the farmhouse, because most children started near the farmhouse and worked outwards, meaning the eggs near the far end were always found last, if at all. He checked at knee height, because that was the most common hiding spot. He always looked in hollow places. And he never, ever got distracted by the lambs, no matter how loudly they bleated or how appealingly they wobbled.

This year, however, things were going to be different.

This year, Oliver had a partner.

Her name was Nadia, and she had just moved to Little Barton three weeks ago from London. She had never been to Primrose Farm. She had never been to an Easter egg hunt. She had, as she told Oliver quite matter-of-factly on the walk over, never actually been this close to a real live lamb before.

Oliver stared at her. \"Never?\"

\"We lived in a flat on the fourteenth floor,\" said Nadia. \"The only animals were pigeons and a fox that went through the bins.\"

Oliver decided immediately that this Easter was going to be the most important Easter of Nadia\'s entire life, and that it was his personal responsibility to make it absolutely brilliant.

They arrived at Primrose Farm to find it already buzzing with activity. Children in bright coats were gathered by the red barn, clutching their wicker baskets and bouncing on their heels with impatience. Farmer Hartley stood by the gate in his flat cap and green wellies, his three dogs sitting in a more or less obedient row beside him. June Hartley was handing out baskets lined with yellow tissue paper and little paper maps of the farm with the boundaries marked in red, so nobody went too far into the fields.

The sky was a pale, clear blue and the air smelled of mud and blossom and something warm and good that might have been the bread June had been baking since early morning. The daffodils along the farm track were swaying gently. Three lambs in the nearest field stood at the fence watching the children with their sideways rectangular pupils, looking puzzled and faintly philosophical.

Nadia stopped walking the moment she saw the lambs.

\"Oh,\" she said. It was a very small word but it carried an enormous amount of feeling in it.

\"Come on,\" said Oliver. \"We need to get our baskets before the good ones go.\"

Nadia did not move. She was staring at the lambs with an expression Oliver could only describe as complete and total wonder. One of the lambs stared back. Then it let out a small, squeaky bleat, quite different from the deep baa of its mother, more like a question than a statement.

Nadia made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a gasp.

\"Oliver,\" she whispered. \"It talked to me.\"

\"It didn\'t talk to you, it\'s a lamb,\" said Oliver, but he was smiling.

\"It said something,\" Nadia insisted. \"I\'m sure of it.\"

Oliver decided that the hunt could wait approximately two minutes, and he led Nadia to the fence where she held out her hand and the boldest of the three lambs sniffed her fingers with its soft black nose. Nadia looked as though she might actually float off the ground with happiness.

After that, she was ready.

They collected their baskets from June Hartley, who winked at Oliver and said she had hidden some particularly tricky ones this year. Oliver felt a competitive thrill run through him. He explained his strategy to Nadia as they walked towards the far end of the farm. She listened carefully, nodding, and asked several very intelligent questions that made Oliver think she might actually be rather good at this.

Farmer Hartley blew a long note on his old brass horn and the hunt began.

The other children scattered in all directions, most of them heading straight for the barn. Oliver and Nadia walked calmly and purposefully towards the far meadow. It was a beautiful morning to be walking across a farm. The grass was thick and green and slightly damp. A blackbird was singing its heart out from the top of the old oak tree by the wall. The ducks on the pond were going about their business with great self-importance.

They found their first egg tucked inside the hollow of the old gatepost at the meadow entrance. It was a small foil-wrapped egg in gold, and Nadia placed it in her basket with the careful reverence of someone handling treasure.

\"First one,\" said Oliver.

\"First one,\" Nadia agreed, and she was grinning.

They moved along the old stone wall that ran the length of the meadow, and Oliver checked each gap and crevice methodically. He found two more eggs in the wall, one blue and one pink. Nadia found one tucked beneath a tuft of long grass near the corner post, which impressed Oliver considerably because he had walked right past it.

\"Good eyes,\" he said.

\"I used to spot foxes from the window at night,\" she said. \"You get good at noticing things that are trying not to be noticed.\"

Oliver thought that was one of the most useful skills he had ever heard of.

They worked their way back across the farm, their baskets growing heavier with each find. Oliver checked under the upturned wheelbarrow by the vegetable patch and found two eggs. Nadia spotted one sitting perfectly camouflaged among the speckled stones of the path leading to the barn, which Oliver would have trodden on if she had not pointed it out. They found three hidden in the hay bales inside the barn, one lodged in the leather band of an old horse collar hanging on the wall, and two more tucked into the mossy ledge above the barn door.

Then they reached the duck pond.

Oliver had learned from experience that June Hartley loved hiding eggs in the reed bed at the edge of the pond. He waded carefully through the long grass at the bank and began checking among the stems. He found one straight away, a large speckled egg wrapped in purple foil. He turned to tell Nadia and found that she was not beside him.

She was standing very still about ten feet away, at the edge of the pond.

And in front of her, sitting on the grass with the confidence of someone who owned the place, was an enormous white goose.

The goose was looking at Nadia. Nadia was looking at the goose. Neither of them was moving.

\"That\'s Gerald,\" Oliver called quietly. \"He lives on the pond. He\'s a bit grumpy.\"

\"He seems fine to me,\" Nadia said softly.

The goose took one step towards her. Nadia crouched down slowly to its level, her basket resting on the grass beside her. The goose stretched out its long neck and looked at her with one orange-rimmed eye. Then, with considerable dignity, it stepped forward and gently took the corner of her yellow tissue paper in its beak and tugged it, once, before letting go and walking away towards the water.

Oliver stared. \"Gerald has never done that with anyone.\"

\"We understood each other,\" said Nadia simply.

After the pond, they found four more eggs near the farmhouse, one behind a plant pot, one inside a hanging basket, one balanced on top of the bird table, and one, impressively hidden, inside an old colander hanging on the outside wall of the kitchen. Oliver only found that last one because he happened to glance up at exactly the right moment.

When Farmer Hartley blew the horn again to signal the end of the hunt, Oliver and Nadia walked back to the counting table by the barn. June Hartley counted their eggs carefully, her lips moving silently.

She looked up. \"Twenty-seven,\" she said, looking rather impressed.

No one else had more than nineteen.

Oliver had won the Easter egg hunt for the fourth year running. But this year, he did not feel like he had won alone. He looked at Nadia, who was looking at the total with shining eyes.

\"We did that together,\" he said.

\"We did,\" said Nadia.

June Hartley brought out warm hot cross buns from the kitchen, sticky with icing and smelling of spice and orange peel, and everyone sat on hay bales in the sunshine eating them while the lambs watched hopefully from the fence.

Nadia took a bite of her hot cross bun and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them and looked out across the farm, at the daffodils and the duck pond and the red barn and the pale blue sky and the three lambs pressing their soft faces against the fence.

\"Oliver,\" she said.

\"Yes?\"

\"I think Easter might be my favourite thing.\"

Oliver looked out across the farm too. The blackbird was still singing in the oak tree. Gerald the goose was floating serenely on the pond. The spring sunshine was warm on their faces.

\"It\'s a good one,\" he agreed.

That evening, when Nadia got home and climbed into bed with her Easter eggs lined up on the windowsill catching the last of the sunset, she thought about the lamb that had sniffed her fingers and the goose that had understood her and the warm weight of a wicker basket full of chocolate.

She pulled her quilt up to her chin and smiled.

Outside, the spring evening was soft and quiet and full of birdsong.

And Little Barton slept, smelling of grass and blossom, with Easter settling gently over it like something wonderful that had decided to stay.

*The End.*