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Happy Easter.
Iím Charles David Clasman.
Along with David Anthony,
we write a series of childrenís books called Heroes A2Z.
Their about superhero kids fighting crime,
pow-pow, before bedtime.
Get ready, because
Daveís going to read from our fifth book
Easter Egg Haunt.
In this story, Peter Cottontailís wicked cousin
Patty Rottentail comes to town.
She brings her big egg filled with ghost and
the Easter egg hunt turns into the Easter Egg Haunt.
Welcome to Traverse City, Michigan, population 18,000.
The city has everything you might expect:
malls, movie theaters, schools, and playgrounds.
Kids swim here in the summer
and build snowmen during the winter.
Sometimes they pretend that they live in an ordinary place.
But Traverse City is far from ordinary.
It is set on one of the Great Lakes and
blooms with brilliant colors in the spring.
Thousands of people visit every year.
Still, few of them know the cityís real secret.
Even fewer talk about it.
You see, Traverse City is home
to three exceptional superheroes.
This story is about them.
Meet Abigail,
the oldest of our heroes by a whole eight minutes.
When it comes to sports, she canít be beató
not at equestrian sports, not at the Easter egg-toss,
and certainly not at shooting eagles on the golf course.
And every year she easily bounces her way to victory
in the Annual Bunny-Hop Marathon.
Andrew comes next.
Heís Abigailís twin brother,
younger by a measly eight minutes.
If it has wheels, Andrew can ride it.
Weíre talking anything with wheels, no matter the size.
From locomotives to tricycles,
he is electric, elite, and epic on wheels.
He even invented the Super-Spoon Pedal-Painter
to make coloring Easter eggs fast and easy.
Last but definitely not least is Baby ZoÎ.
Sheís proof that big things can come in small packages.
She still wears a diaper, but she has x-ray vision that helps
her find her Easter basket regardless of where itís hidden.
She puts the extra in extraordinary.
Together these three heroes keep the streets and
neighborhoods of Traverse City, Michigan and Amercia safe.
Together they are Ö
Heroes A2Z.
ìExcited!î ZoÎ squealed, barely able to stand still.
Not that she was really standing.
She was a superhero and could fly.
So she was floating in place like a fidgety,
excited, baby-sized helicopter.
She and her siblings were waiting
for the Read and Seek Egg Hunt to
begin behind the Traverse City Public Library.
Dozens of other kids crouched to their right and left,
all waiting just as impatiently, all thinking the same thing.
Hurry up already!
Andrew gave ZoÎ a playful nudge.
ìDonít you mean egg-cited,î he smirked.
ZoÎ and Abigail didnít share their brotherís sense of humor.
Easter was tomorrow,
and theyíd had it with Andrewís egg jokes.
ìYour brain is scrambled,î Abigail groaned.
ìEgg-straterrestrial,î ZoÎ said,
meaning she thought Andrew was an alien.
The girls, you see, had
it with Andrewís egg jokes because they knew them all.
You canít teach an old dog new tricks, they say,
and you definitely canít out-yolkóoops, out-jokeó
a kid on Easter weekend.
Mrs. Dewey, the director of the library,
cleared her throat to get everyoneís attention.
It worked, too, but the fact that she was
wearing a pink bunny costume didnít hurt.
ìRemember, children,î she said.
ìThe winner of the egg hunt will receive a set
of autographed Knightscares books.î
A cheer went up through the crowd.
Hunting Easter eggs was fun,
but autographed books didnít rot and turn your
bedroom into a nuclear wasteland
if you forgot them under your bed.
ìOn your mark!î shouted Mrs. Dewey
when the crowd quieted.
ìGet set!î said Mr. Decimal, the childrenís librarian.
He was also wearing a costume.
He was dressed as a giant carrot.
ìHunt!î they cried together, slapping closed
the covers of two thick encyclopedias.
The noise the books made resembled the firing
of a starterís pistol at a track-and-field event.
***! GO!
Off they went. Baskets in hand,
of kids tore out of the starting gates like wild-eyed
Little Red Riding Hoods running from the wolf.
Some squealed, some giggled,
some even tripped and fell.
But all of them had the same goal in mind:
Find eggs in two waysófast and often.
The Read and Seek Egg Hunt was on!
As you might expect,
Andrew, and ZoÎ jumped out to an early lead.
Hunting for eggs wasnít much like battling supervillains
or saving the world, but donít tell that to the heroes.
They knew how to put their powers to work for good
and good times.
ìTry not to hit every bump,î
Abigail grumped over her shoulder.
ìDonít be a back-wagon driver,î Andrew retorted.
The two were riding in the typical red wagon.
What wasnít typical was that Abigail
was fishing off the back end.
She cast and caught eggs while Andrew steered.
Meanwhile, ZoÎ took to the air.
was the only one who could, and
that gave her an enormous egg-spotting advantage.
In fact, she spotted eggs that
no one else could possibly see from the ground.
Although there was an important reason for that.
No one could spot such eggs from the ground because
they were not a part of the Read and Seek Egg Hunt.
ZoÎ found that out the hard way.
Momma and Daddy robin came swooping in to protect their babies. 131 00:05:42,548 --> 00:05:45,248 They were Michiganís state bird, and they
had recently returned from their winter in Mexico.
ìChirp!î Daddy chirped.
ìSquawk!î Momma squawked.
ìExcuse,î ZoÎ apologized,
putting back the eggs and fleeing the nest.
Her mistake, however,
affected more than the birds.
It slowed her down and gave another
egg-hunting team time to catch up.
Rabbit and his sister Princess, two of the heroesí 142 00:06:07,465 --> 00:06:09,465 neighbors and friends, were gaining ground.
Their baskets brimmed with eggs, and Rabbitís nose was
twitching like Ö well, like a rabbitís in a carrot patch.
His name wasnít really Rabbit, of course,
and his sisterís wasnít really Princess.
But the nicknames fit and so they stuck,
and the children didnít mind at all.
Princess wanted to be a real princess,
and Rabbit liked all things rabbit.
That included Easter eggs and the skills to find them.
So the Read and Seek Egg Hunt
came down to a competition between two teams.
The heroes vs. their neighbors.
It was a friendly contest but fierce,
and led the participants to search for eggs
in unusual and unexpected places.
After her trouble with the birdsí nest,
ZoÎ decided to check a safer location.
She peeked into Mrs. Deweyís bunny ears with a doctorís otoscope.
She figured that rabbit ears were big enough to hide eggs in,
and she wouldnít get pecked by angry birds while checking.
Rabbit and ZoÎ investigated every
out-of-the-way nook and cranny they could find.
They looked in logs, browsed bookshelves,
glanced in gutters, and searched the shrubbery.
They even called on all their courage
and peeked under a porcupine.
Top that, Heroes A2Z. Ouch!
Seeing Rabbit and Princessís determination
pushed Abigail to cast and reel faster.
She and her siblings couldnít lose or
they would never hear the end of it.
Three superheroes beaten by just two kids?
Talk about having egg on the face!
It would be Easter egg on her face.
In the end, however, no team won.
The game was called on account insane.
Princess, Rabbit, and the heroes stumbled onto
something so big that they forgot everything else.
Even their Easter baskets slipped from their
grips like last yearís broken toys.
Something that big should have been impossible,
but there it was before their eyes.
They couldnít deny what they saw.
This ends the preview of the book.
Thank you for listening.