He flushed the toilet, even though he hadn’t done anything. Egg in his hand, he opened the stall door—and ran right into Michael.
“What is that?” Michael said, blocking the exit. “Give it to me, I want to see.”
“No way,” Joel said.
Joel went to put the egg back in the backpack, but before he could, Michael snatched it from his hands. “What is this? Is it from a dinosaur or something?”
“Give it back!” Joel said, lunging for it.
“No way. This is awesome. Everyone’s going to love it!” Michael said. With that, he turned and ran.
“No, you’ll hurt it! And it needs to stay warm!” Joel cried as he ran after Michael. The thought of the poor baby chick jostling inside, a defenseless little animal that had already been through so much, brought tears to his eyes. Joel ran out of the bathroom and down the hallway.
Michael was fast. It was all Joel could do to keep him in view as he raced down the school’s unfamiliar corridors. Startled kids peered out of the windows of the classrooms they passed. All it would take was one teacher coming out into the hallway, and it would all be over. The egg would be confiscated.
Michael tossed the egg in the air as he ran, shouting taunts behind him. “You want it back? How much do you want it back?”
“Stop it!” Joel yelled.
Michael slammed through some double doors, and suddenly they were out on the playground, running across the stretch of open asphalt between two basketball hoops. Not too far away, a group of little kids was playing four square. Their teacher was busy taking roll call. No one had noticed the egg—yet.
Michael tossed the egg high in the air and barely caught it, diving for it with both hands extended. Then he tossed the egg right into the air again.
“Give it back!” Joel called as he rushed toward Michael, reaching his arms out to beat him to the falling egg. Like outfielders after a fly ball, they stared up at the sky at the egg turning end over end. It passed in front of the sun, and they were both blinded. The boys knocked into each other. Seeing purple, Joel flailed his hands through the air, hoping to make contact with the egg.
But he didn’t. All he heard was a loud crack.
Furious, he shoved Michael away. “No!”
At Joel’s feet were ruins of eggshell, gray on the outside and brilliant white on the inside. In the middle was a wet little bird, no bigger than a fist. It was on its side, but then it righted itself and looked directly at Joel. It flapped its miniscule wings, opened and closed its beak. Then it made a sound. “Oork!”
A POP QUIZ
NINA’S QUIZ WAS not going well. If only they had started with math, then she would have been right on top of it. Spelling was unfortunately not her strong suit. It wasn’t fair—she was new, which meant she hadn’t had a chance to study any of these words! Mr. Prendergast said just to do her best, and the grade wouldn’t count, but even so, Nina took an extra moment to curse being the new kid again. It was the absolute worst.
How did anyone know how to spell wrinkle? Nina had an r down on her paper, but it already didn’t look right.
She spared a moment to glance down at her bag, which she’d left open at the side of her desk—quite cleverly, she thought. She could check on the egg all through class. It was nestled snugly in its fleece blanket, heat radiating up from the hot-water bottle, enough to turn Nina’s forehead sweaty.
Wait—did the egg have a crack in it?
“Eyes on your paper, Nina,” Mr. Prendergast said.
“Sorry,” Nina said, returning to wrinkle. Her face flushed even more. He thought she’d been cheating! This was not going to be a good first impression.
“The next word,” Mr. Prendergast said, “is ‘content,’ as in ‘satisfied.’ ‘Content.’”
Nina spent a long time penciling a c, sneaking glances at her bag. The egg was definitely shaking, and the crack was getting bigger. She could hear a tapping sound. She scratched her pencil harder along her paper, hoping that sound would cover the ones coming from the egg.
Oh my! There was a hole in the egg now, and from the other side of the hole emerged a little beak, hard and black and with a hook on the end. Nina knew from her library research that that was called an egg tooth. The chick was coming out! She wished Joel were here to see. Some situations just called for a big brother.
She had only one letter down again when Mr. Prendergast called out the next word. Highway. This one Nina had a better chance on.
She just let her pencil make random movements on the paper, though, while she stared down at the chick. It was fully out of its shell now. A real live baby penguin! Oh my gosh!
Then it made its first noise: A very small oork! The student on Nina’s right looked up and around, confused.
Uh-oh. This was going to get out of hand very quickly.
“Oork, oork!”
Before Nina could stop it, the chick picked its way out of the shell, then up and out of her backpack and onto the classroom floor. “No, stop!” she whispered as the bird started toddling under her desk, holding out its flippers. It was very cute, a dark gray ball of fuzz with a white
