Big Eyes (2 stars in visual assignment bank)

Jessie was so happy to be spending her spring break on the infamous Easter Island, where she had volunteered with a preservation group to spend her time overlooking the moai all around the island to make sure they stayed in top condition. Upon sight of Tahai, Jessie knew that the statue with eyes was her favorite moai.

What really fascinated her about this moai was the fact that this particular one represented how the statues must have looked before the civil wars on the island, where various villages would topple them and take away their eyes from the sockets. Jessie had learned from her supervisor in the preservation group that these eyes meant that the ancestor of whom the moai represented was alive and looking over the village that built it.

It was just a typical morning when Jessie went to go make her rounds around the island– her first stop, Tahai. But when she arrived, she witnessed the most peculiar thing…

The eyes… were they always that big? No, somehow, they had gotten bigger! How is this even possible? Immediately, Jessie went into panic mode. In her mind, someone must have messed with the statue overnight, and now it was up to her to notify the higherups of this vandalism. How dare they! The moai are sacred historical monuments of Easter Island! Jessie ran over to her supervisor, who upon eye contact, burst out laughing. This was confusing to Jessie, as she had no idea what was so funny about the situation. The supervisor managed to catch her breath after a good moment of giggles, when she finally said “April Fools!”

“What?”, Jessie gasped, still quite confused. “We like to prank all our volunteers on April 1st. Don’t worry, the moai will be back to normal tomorrow, and we’re always cautious when handling moai,” the supervisor explained. What a relief. Now that the sense of panic began to fade, Jessie began to laugh alongside her supervisor, as they drove off into the distance to continue their work.