While I’m brewing a cup of tea in the kitchen, Fleegle comes in from the patio with something muddy in his mouth.

“Why don’t you leave that gooky ball outside?”

He mouths around it, “It’s not a ball, Raud, it’s something else.”

“What then?”

He sets it on the floor. “I don’t know. I found it in the earth.”

It’s smaller than one of his tennis balls and shaped like an egg. I pick it up and rinse it off in the sink. “It’s blue, the sky blue of July.” I weigh it in my hand. “It’s too heavy to be an egg.”

“If it were an egg I would’ve eaten it.”

“Don’t let George hear you say that.”

“He’s mad at me.”

“Did you eat all his Chickie Puffs again?”

“You try eating just one.”

“That’s a dangerous advertizing meme you’re repeating started by the potato chip companies.” I look down at the egg thingy in my hand, which is now pink, the rose pink of sunset.

Fleegle tilts his head to the side. “I thought you said it was blue.”

I look at him. “It was blue, now it’s pink.”

“No, now it’s yellow.”

“The yellow of a ripe lemon.”

“Yuck, I hate lemons. Give it to me and I’ll go put it back in the ground.”

“But you like lemon scones.”

“Scones are biscuits.”

“Why don’t you show me where you found it.”

I follow Fleegle into the backyard toward the fence at the property line and into the bamboo to a hole he’s dug.

“I found it in that hole,” he says.

“What made you dig there?”

“It smelled funny, like that egg thingy smells funny. Let’s bury it and leave it alone.”

“But what if it’s an egg left by those crazy space chickens?”

“The ones Timber Jack and his date ate? The Master Race of chickendom?”

“Yeah, those chickens.”

“Then drop it in a food bowl and put it out with the garbage cans on garbage day. Let Timber Jack finish what he started. We can watch from the picture window, nice and safe on the living room couch.”

In the dark of the bamboo the egg thingy gives off a lot of light. “I’ve got a better idea. The fridge bulb burnt out this morning, let’s use this instead.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You’ve been watching too much Star Wars.”

 

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