A Very Merry Easter

    Maurice really hated Easter. He always had, ever since he could remember. Each year his family, the Ketters, would meet up to hunt eggs and reflect on Jesus. The whole thing had always creeped him out to be honest. He went to sleep at night in terror, dreaming of a neon rabbit breaking into his home. Sometimes Jesus would be there cackling and throwing eggs around.These dreams were particularly disturbing.
        Even now, at the age of 15, Maurice was dreading Easter. This year was going to be even worse because the Ketter family's once egg-hunting children were now opinionated teenagers, and being one himself Maurice had his own fill of attitude.
     He hated his cousins, well his girl cousins anyway. Jim was okay. Jim was 13, and he was quiet so Maurice didn't really mind him. He did however, mind Jamie and Delia. He could only explain his hatred for them through the articles of clothing they wore: skinny tank-tops, and preripped, artificially faded jeggings so tight that their feet appeared a slight shade of blue. Their wrists were riddled with glittery  jelly bracelets that said things like, "4ever" and "True Sis".
     Maurice thought of his own sister away at college. She had hated Jamie and Delia too. how he missed her.
   He cringed at the sound of the doorbell and hesitated to walk down and greet them. If heir roles were switched, his cousins would not greet him. No, Delia and Jamie would lock themselves in their rooms,and scream as if they were being murdered when Aunt Polly asked them to the dinner table! Still, Maurice was better than that, and he met them at the door along with his mother. "Hello!" she quipped cheerfully. "Come in, come in! The chicken is still baking, why don't you have a seat in the living room."
       Aunt Polly walked straight to the kitchen, probably to beg for some kind of cooking task that would relinquish any guilt she had about not having Easter Dinner at her house. Uncle Max went to the living room, a beer in hand that he must have brought himself, and turned on some football game. there was always a football game to watch.
     This left Jim, Maurice, Jamie, and Delia in the foyer to scrap up some kind of awkward conversation. There were few times that Maurice wished for the scary bunny. This was was one of those times. "Um,so..." he started hopefully,but nobody was listening. Except for maybe quiet Jim. It didn't take long anyway,  for Jamie and Delia to rush off to the kitchen and begin to complain about their hunger and their weight, and just how HUGE their pores were.
     Quiet Jim joined his dad in front of the television,and Maurice was starting to think that watching football might unfortunately be what he was destined to do right now too, in the world of gender.
     Instead though, he stepped outside and called his sister. This stabilized his sanity and reminded him that his cousins could become a simple antic dote some day if he wanted them to. He walked back inside with a different attitude. Instead of dreading his family's every move, he would savor them. Who knows? Maybe Jamie and Delia could make for a good story some day.