Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."


"Miss Ginny! I found an egg!"

Virginia Mitchell-Lee turned her attention from the children swarming over the park and surrounding hillside to a small girl in a pastel pink dress and white tights, holding a green marbled egg in one little hand. Ginny smiled and leaned forward to examine the object. A blonde tress slipped free from her bun and stroked her cheek before coming to rest along the line of her jaw. "That's a really pretty one, Amanda," she said and tapped the handle of a white wicker basket that hung over the girl's other arm. "Put it in your basket and keep looking. You don't want Thomas to collect more than you do, right? There's going to be a prize for whoever finds the most eggs, you know. You can win! You're very good at finding things!"

Amanda smiled and ran off toward the rest of the children, her shiny Mary-janes barely staying on her feet. Ginny sat back on her bench and brushed down the skirt of her lavender dress. There was, in fact, a prize for every child who attended the hunt regardless of whether they'd found two eggs or two hundred. There would be another hunt later in the day for older kids between the ages of eight and thirteen with a more age-appropriate reward, and Ginny would be attending that one in a chaperone capacity as well. Her blue eyes absently swept the grounds of the youth center, keeping an eye out for trouble, but with parents mulling around and picnicking on the grass, she didn't need to be so vigilant.

A cloud cross Ginny's pretty face, and she frowned in thought. As a rule, North Salem seemed to accept their mutant inhabitants, and as an organizer of the Easter Egg Hunt, she had sent invitations to the Xavier Institute, but she was concerned. Would any of the students or inhabitants come even when invited? And if they did, would their reception be as warm as she hoped. Ginny didn't know, but she was hoping her fears would soon be allayed.

"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"