BASKET CASE

The Goodwill on Route 900 outside of Crescent City smelled like mothballs and other people's memories. Milo actually didn't mind. Weird smells were interesting.

Thrifting was lightning speed shopping with Grandma Bunni. Scan, grab, decide in under four seconds, then move on. She'd already collected a lamp shaped like a flamingo and two neon green throw pillows by the time Milo found the Easter basket.

It was in the holiday section, wedged between a deflated pumpkin and a box of Christmas ornaments missing half their hooks. The basket itself was normal enough. Purple plastic weave, fake grass, the whole Easter deal. The three stuffed bunnies inside were... weird.

Pink, white, and yellow. Fluffy. Technically. Their eyes were too wide, like they were startled by something only they could see. Their mouths were open. Like smiles, except smiles didn't usually show that many teeth. Milo counted. The pink one had at least thirty.

“Oh, precious!” Grandma Bunni materialized at Milo's elbow. She smelled like lavender and moved like a ghost. Best Grandma ever. “Look at those sweet little faces!”

Milo wrinkled his nose. The yellow one seemed to be looking back.

“They have a lot of teeth,” Milo said.

“Decorative,” said Grandma Bunni, and dropped the basket in her cart.

Photo prompt from Gregory Blair

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There was a card tucked in the fake grass. Milo found it in the car. He pulled it from under the pink bunny's foot. It was scribbled on an index card. The handwriting was shaky.

DO NOT FEED THE BUNNIES CHOCOLATE.

NOT EVEN A LITTLE.

NOT EVEN ONCE.

Milo read it twice. Then a third time, because it kept being interesting.

Who wrote this? Who felt so strongly about chocolate that they scrawled it on an index card before dropping the whole situation at Goodwill? Why not just throw the bunnies away?

Why donate them with a warning?

Milo put the card in his back pocket.

This was going to be fun.

The basket went on the kitchen table, because it was Easter weekend. Grandma Bunni arranged the bunnies herself, turning them to face outward, fussing with their ears. “Don't they look darling,” she said.

Milo's sister Priya, came in, took one look at the bunnies, and said “Nope,” and left.

Milo's younger brother Teo came in and immediately tried to put the yellow one in his mouth. Grandma Bunni made tea and giggled about it.

That night, when everyone was distracted Milo was going to ‘science’ an answer to the note card. Grandma Bunni had gone to bed. Priya was doing homework. Theo was snoring like a cat. It was time….

Milo sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor in front of the Easter basket and considered the bunnies.

They stared back.

The card said not to feed them chocolate.

Milo reached into the Easter candy bowl that Grandma Bunni sat out. A ceramic bowl full of mini eggs and foil-wrapped bunnies and peanut butter cups. Milo pulled out a single Hershey's Kiss.

For scientific purposes.

“This,” Milo said, holding it up, “is chocolate.”

The bunnies did not react. Obviously. They were stuffed animals.

Milo unwrapped the Kiss very slowly. It made a lot of crinkly noise. The bunnies still didn't react.

Milo placed it on the edge of the basket, right next to the pink one's foot.

Nothing happened.

Milo watched for thirty seconds. He counted, one Mississippi, two….. then went to bed, feeling slightly ridiculous.

In the morning, the Hershey's Kiss was gone.

Milo stared at the basket. The fake grass was undisturbed. The bunnies were in the exact same positions.

Milo found Priya.

“I put chocolate in the bunny basket last night,” Milo said.

“You did what?” said Priya, not looking up from her phone.

“The card said not to feed them chocolate, so—”

“You fed them chocolate.”

“For science.”

Priya looked up. She had a very specific older-sibling expression that meant I cannot believe we are related. “Milo. They're stuffed animals. They don't eat.”

“The chocolate's gone.”

“You probably ate it in your sleep.”

“I don't sleep-eat.”

“There's a first time for everything,” said Priya. She rolled her eyes then went back to her phone.

That night, Milo showed Teo the card.

“Chocolate,” Teo said immediately. Teo was four and he loved chocolate.

“The card says not to.”

“Choc-o-late,” said Teo, more emphatically.

They found a mini peanut butter cup in the candy bowl. Teo had no fear. No hesitation. No sense of consequences whatsoever. He waddled right up to the basket, unwrapped the cup, and dropped it directly into the pink bunny's open mouth.

The pink bunny blinked.

Teo laughed. “It blinked!”

“It didn't blink,” Milo said.

Teo blinked back at the bunny, in solidarity. The bunny did not blink again.

When Milo got up at two in the morning to get water, the peanut butter cup was gone. All three bunnies were facing the doorway now instead of the window.

Milo stood in the kitchen for a long moment.

Then got the water.

Then went back to bed.

Then did not sleep.

The teeth marks showed up the next day.

Small ones. On the cardboard tube of a paper towel roll. On the wooden spoon by the stove. Grandma Bunni blamed mice. “Old houses,” she said serenely, as if this explained everything.

Milo found bite marks on the leg of his chair at breakfast. Tiny, but deep. Whatever made them had sharp teeth. Many sharp teeth. Many many sharp teeth.

There were four bunnies in the basket now.

Milo counted three times to be sure. Pink, white, yellow... and a new one, smaller, sort of purple. Staring at Milo with the same startled eyes as the others.

Teo pointed at it and said “Baby.”

“Don't feed the baby,” Milo said.

“Why,” asked Teo.

“Because,” said Milo.

“Okay,” said Teo. He immediately fed it a Cadbury egg.

By Easter morning, there were nine.

The candy bowl was completely empty. Not just the chocolate. The Peeps, the jelly beans, even the weird coconut ones nobody ever wanted. Gone.

The bunnies had expanded out of the basket entirely. They were arranged across the table in a rough semicircle. Nine of them. Various sizes. A rainbow of colors. All with the same wide eyes and open mouths and impressive dental situation.

Grandma Bunni came downstairs in her bathrobe, looked at the arrangement, and clasped her hands to her chest.

“They multiplied!” she said. “How precious!”

“Grandma,” said Priya, “those things are horrible.”

“They're darling,” said Grandma Bunni serenely.

“The one on the left is watching you.”

“It's a stuffed animal, sweetheart.”

The one on the left was, in fact, looking at Grandma Bunni. Milo watched it track her as she moved toward the coffee maker. Its head turned approximately fifteen degrees to follow her.

Grandma Bunni poured her coffee and did not notice.

Milo pulled the index card out and reread it for the hundredth time.

DO NOT FEED THE BUNNIES CHOCOLATE.

NOT EVEN A LITTLE.

NOT EVEN ONCE.

They needed to find whoever wrote this. They needed to find them fast. The candy bowl was empty but it was Easter. Grandma Bunni mentioned she'd hidden eggs in the backyard.

Forty-seven of them.

Milo looked at the nine bunnies.

The nine bunnies looked back.

From outside, muffled through the kitchen window, they heard Teo shout… “Found one!”

Softly but distinctly, from the direction of the table…

Crunch.

Milo ran.

THE END……of the beginning