THE BABY EGG
Edward Allan Faine
Sometimes I’d ask Mother where I came from and she’d say, “Go ask Daddy.” Then he’d tell me to ask her. I wondered if they really knew. The other kids made fun of me ‘cause I didn’t. The oldest Smith boy, Billy, teased me all the time. “I-know-and-you-don’t. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.” His brother Jimmy teased me, too. “Bet ya think the stork brought ya?”
“There’s no storks around here,” I’d say.
Storks lived far away, at least I knew that. Mother’d told me about storks but not about where I came from. Maybe she was hiding something. Maybe I wasn’t her little boy after all. Maybe she found me on the porch like Billy said and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. But I wanted to know, so I asked her again. “Billy says I’m not your little boy and that’s why you won’t tell me where I come from.”
“That’s not true,” Mother said, stomping her foot real hard. “You just tell Billy you came from the hospital, you hear.”
When I told him I came from the hospital he laughed and acted smarty-pants. “All babies come from the hospital but that’s not where they come from.”
Jimmy added, “Babies are born in the hospital so doctors and nurses can take care of them. You sure are stupid, Ned.”
“Am not. I saw your baby sister come home from the hospital wrapped in blankets. So, don’t call me stupid.”
I didn’t like the Smith brothers when they made fun of me. I went home and told Mother I wasn’t going to eat supper until she told me where I came from. She sent me to my room.
When Daddy came home, they came to my room and sat on the bed. Mother said, “We didn’t tell you where you came from because we didn’t think you’d understand. Now that you’re a big boy going-on six, it’s time you knew.
“You didn’t come from the stork and nobody dropped you on the front porch. You came from me and Daddy. Six years ago we went to the hospital and that’s where you were born. The doctors and nurses took care of you, fed you, put baby clothes on you and then we came home.
“The hospital gave us a birth certificate. See, here it is. It’s got your baby footprints on it and your name’s on it, too. Daddy keeps it in his desk and you can see it anytime you like.”
“Why did Billy and Jimmy laugh when I told them I came from the hospital?”
“I don’t know, dear. They were born in a hospital, too.”
“How did I get born?”
“You grew from a little baby egg inside my belly. Remember when we went to Grandma’s house and saw Aunt Frida? She was real big, remember? Well, that’s how I looked before you were born. You were in my belly.”
“How’d I get out?”
“You came from between my legs.”
I wondered why she hadn’t told me that before. I wouldn’t have sounded so stupid. I couldn’t wait to tell the Smith brothers.
Down at the creek the next afternoon I told them where I came from. They didn’t say anything, they just kept throwing stones in the creek. I asked if they came from between their mother’s legs and they didn’t answer. Finally, Billy said, “We came from mummy’s tummy, that’s where, not from her legs.”
“I didn’t say from her legs, I said between them.”
“Don’t matter none,” Jimmy said. “Maybe we all come from different places. Help me throw this log into the creek, will ya?”
After that, the Smith brothers didn’t talk much about where I came from. But I thought about it more than ever. If I came from between Mother’s legs, I must have come out of her poop. No wonder she went to the hospital. The doctors had to clean me off so I could grow up. If that’s the way it was, I wondered why daddies never had babies. I pooped and so did Daddy. I asked Mother, “Does Daddy go number two like you?”
“Why are you always asking these kinds of questions? Don’t you want to know why the sky is blue? Or why birds sing? Of course Daddy goes number two and you know it.”
“Do I go number two like Daddy?”
“Of course. Now go play with your trains.”
So maybe I could have a baby, too. Maybe I already had one and didn’t know it. Maybe there was a baby egg in my poop every morning. I never looked, I just flushed it down the toilet.
Mother should’ve told me this stuff but she was like most big people. They told you little things ' about numbers and all ' and keep big things to themselves. They did it to look smart in front of us little kids. For the first time, though, I had learned a big people’s secret ' babies came from poop. And I was going to prove it and tell the other kids.
That evening I got a stick and hid it behind the toilet. After I went number two the next morning, I poked the poop in the bowl with my stick. I didn’t find anything. Maybe I had to eat something special. Mother told me she drank lots of milk before I was born. So I put lots of milk on my cereal every morning after that. Mother said milk would make me grow up big and strong. I didn’t care about that, I wanted to have a baby. I wasn’t having any luck, though.
Every morning I knocked my poop apart with my stick but I never found anything that looked like a little baby egg. I found pieces of corn and stringy things but no baby. Maybe I wasn’t eating the right kind of cereal. Shredded wheat biscuits looked like birds’ nests, maybe that’s what I needed to help the baby egg grow. Every morning, I had shredded wheat with lots of milk but still nothing happened. Maybe the Smith brothers were right, only mommies could have babies. Then it finally happened.
One morning I beat the stool real hard with my stick. There, in the middle, floating in a little sack was a baby egg. It had two little arms and legs. I rushed out of the bathroom, got a scooper but when I got back, Mother was standing there holding my stick. “What are you doing, Ned?”
“Nothing .”
“Yes you are. I don’t want to see you playing with your poop again. And flush the toilet when you’re done.”
When she turned to flush the toilet, I yelled, “Don’t! Please don’t! You’ll hurt it!”
“Hurt what?” she said, as she hit the handle.
“You did it,” I bawled. “You flushed the baby down the toilet.” I ran into the living room, dived on the sofa and hid my head under a pillow so she wouldn’t see me crying.
She removed the pillow from my head, turned me around and ordered, “Sit up and behave. Whatever are you talking about?”
“The little baby egg in my poop,” I screamed. “It was the first one I found. And it was alive. It had little arms and everything. I told you not to flush it down the toilet.”
“I do declare! What will you think of next! There was no baby in the toilet. Whatever made you think that?”
“You told me babies come from poop.”
“I told you no such thing and you know it.”
“Yes you did. You told me I came from between your legs.”
“Yes...you came from between my legs but...you didn’t come out in poop. You...you came out of my special baby hole. All -babies come out of their mothers’ baby hole when they’re born.”
“Does Daddy have a baby hole?”
“No, silly. Only mommies have baby holes. Like mommy chickens ' hens ' you know how hens lay eggs? Well, it’s like that, only you didn’t have a shell. We’ll go to Farmer Boll and ask him if we can watch a hen lay an egg. Then you’ll understand. Okay?”
I wished she’d told me all these things right from the start. I wouldn’t have looked so stupid or done stupid things. Still, I wondered if she was telling me another story. After all, I saw a little baby egg in my poop before she flushed it down the toilet. I’d look for another one when I got the chance. Maybe I was different somehow.
I wondered what else she wasn’t telling me.
