Every year we were wakened by my father's voice, speaking in a soft but firm whisper: "Let's go, sleepy-heads, it's Easter Sunday."

We always rose, heavy-lidded but eager, and quickly dressed in the clothes he'd laid out for us on the ends of our beds. We gathered in the backyard, forming a semicircle around my father, who held sway like a ringmaster — or a drill sergeant who gave hugs. "The Easter Bunny was here," he'd inform us in a solemn tone. "And here's the proof." He'd hold up a colored egg that seemed suspiciously similar to the ones we'd dyed only a few nights earlier. (If anyone were foolish enough to express this seeming coincidence, however, my father suggested the speaker hadn't gotten enough sleep, and sent him back to bed to miss out on the Easter fun.)

"So we know the bunny's around," my father would continue, "and he must be stopped. You know what rabbits do, right? Unless we want to drown in these damn colored eggs, we've got to turn him into fricassee. First one to get the Easter Bunny between the eyes wins the prize."

And so began the annual Brockman family Easter Bunny Hunt. Next came the drawing of the straws, the biggest getting first pick of the weapons Dad laid out on the picnic table. Of course we each wanted the BB gun. I always wound up choosing last and usually ended up with the rusty hatchet we used for chopping firewood — which made dispatching the bunny a horrendous, truly messy affair. Luckily I never found the varmint myself. My brothers seemed to have more skill in tracking the colored eggs to the culprit who had laid them.

Although I never won the basket of candy and G.I. Joe toys, I always managed to sneak a few jelly beans when the victorious sibling wasn't looking. Besides, rabbit fricassee and a week of colorful hardboiled eggs for lunch is truly its own reward.

"I'm tired," Bagheera complains.

"Jet lag," Bear tells him.

"It's n—" Bagheera starts to say, but Oreo interrupts before he gets any further.

"It's about time for breakfast," Oreo announces. "How's the kedgeree coming?"

Fup calls from the next room: "Almost ready. Ten minutes."

April is "Eating the World" month. Honoring the notion of Greenwich Mean Time, Fup decided that the first meal of the cats' celebration should reflect a British menu — in cuisine as well as in time, if not in literal geography. It's one o'clock in the morning in Portland, Oregon.

Bagheera can hardly keep his eyes open. "What time do they eat leftovers in England?" he asks.