Jack Hopper and the Case of the Hollow Egg
Show Low, Arizona. Easter weekend.
A town named after a card game and built on quiet rules—neat burrows, pressed waistcoats, and sweetgrass pies cooling on windowsills. The rabbits here liked things tidy—fur brushed, ears up, flags hung straight, gossip shared over pancake stacks.
But beneath the pawshakes and pancake breakfasts, trouble was brewing.
The ceremonial Hollow Egg—an ornate, hand-blown glass egg passed down since 1881—was missing.
Every Easter Sunday, that egg sat atop a velvet pillow on the front steps of the Show Low Elks Lodge—the pride of the town’s annual Easter hunt.
But this morning? Just an empty pedestal and two clues: A tuft of gray fur, left smack in front of the Elks Lodge—and a playing card, tucked beneath the velvet: an ace of spades, corner bitten clean through.
Mayor Leech, a portly Dutch rabbit with trembling whiskers, held it up with salad tongs. “It’s them.”
Sheriff Clouse nodded grimly. “The raccoons. Whisker Six.”
Everyone knew the name—masked bandits from the Pinetop backwoods. Greedy. Unwashed. Uncivilized.
It was time.
Time to bring back Jack Hopper.
Jack was a rabbit—long-eared, long-fused, and not the kind you found nursing carrot juice in Rocky’s Cocktail Lounge. He’d once taken down a hawk with nothing but a shovel handle and a bad mood. Retired now, or so folks said, he lived quiet on the edge of Thistlebrush, off the grid and out of reach.
Until the Whisker Six dragged his name back into the dirt.
Daisy Cloverfield found him just past dawn, crouched beside a rain barrel, sipping dandelion tea.
"Jack," she said, breathless. "The Hollow Egg. It's gone."
Jack didn’t look up. "Let the town handle it."
"They scratched your name into the pedestal. Like it’s personal."
He froze.
"And they left this," she added, handing over a playing card—an ace of spades with a bite mark in the corner. "You remember what that means."
Jack stared at it. He remembered. Too well.
Night fell hard on Show Low. Jack moved with the shadows, ears low, boots soft on gravel. He passed the church, the school, the old mercantile. He knew this town better than anyone. Better than it knew itself.
In Pinetop, he found the Whisker Six holed up in the ranger station—closed for the night, lights off, blinds drawn. The door creaked as he pushed inside.
"Well, well," came a voice. "Look what the pines spit out."
Red, the leader, leaned against a filing cabinet, toothpick between his teeth, his gold jellybean molar catching the firelight. His five brothers flanked him—Blue, Stripes, Twitch, Nails, and Grease.
"Hopper," Red grinned. "Didn’t think we’d see you again."
"Didn’t think I’d need to come back," Jack replied, stepping into the light. "But then you made it personal."
"I left the card," Nails said.
“Yeah,” Jack replied. “You always did have a flair for stupid.”
"You think you can scare us into handing it over?" Red chuckled. “This isn’t some Elks Lodge pancake breakfast, furball.”
Jack shrugged. "You know what happens next. Or did you forget about what happened at West Baldy?"
They didn’t.
Red’s smile twitched. "We’re six. You’re one."
Jack took a slow breath. "Then you’d better get help."
The fight wasn’t fair.
But Jack wasn’t here to be fair.
Filing cabinets slammed shut like bear traps. A folding chair spun through the air, cracked across Grease’s snout. Twitch lunged and missed—straight through a window in a blur of fur and broken glass.
Stripes grabbed a broom handle. Jack snapped it over his knee. Nails tried to box—left jab, right feint—but Jack had studied him. Knew his footwork. Dropped him with an elbow to the jaw.
Blue got in one good hit. That was his mistake. Jack returned three.
Red tried to run. Jack tackled him into the map board, pins flying like shrapnel.
Two minutes later, the Whisker Six lay moaning in a heap, twitching among jellybean wrappers and splinters of broken chairs.
Jack dusted off his coat, stepped over Blue, and yanked open the storage locker.
There it was—the Hollow Egg. Untouched.
Jack cradled the egg gently, then paused, turning back to Red.
“Stay out of Show Low. This was your last holiday.”
Red spit out the toothpick. “You should’ve stayed retired. We ain’t the only ones out here.”
Jack met his eyes. “Good. Let ’em come.”
By sunrise, the egg was back on its pillow. Easter in Show Low rolled on like nothing ever happened.
Children ran. Cameras clicked. And somewhere in the back, Daisy spotted him—Jack Hopper, leaning against a ponderosa, arms folded.
She walked over, offering him a thermos.
"Still don’t like crowds," he muttered.
"Still don’t like raccoons," she replied.
He smirked.
"They’ll be back," she said.
"I’ll be ready."
The sound of kids laughing echoed through the parking lot.
Jack turned without a word and slipped into the morning fog, tail flicking once before he vanished.
Easter was safe. For now.
