AN EGG FOR MEG
                           by
                                                                                       claudia
 

 

     School had only been out for a week and Meg and her older brother Pete, were
bored.  They had waded barefoot in the creek, rode the old horse, Molly, until she ran
away from them when they came near, and weeded Mama's garden until there were no
weeds left.  Feeding the chickens and keeping their rooms neat didn't take long and the
days stretched long before them when their chores were done.

     Early one Monday morning with the sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing
they were sitting on the front porch swing making it go higher than was allowed.  The old
chains creaked and groaned and the swing made loud thumps as it hit the wall of the
house.

  "Can't you kids think of something to do?" their mother said walking out of the house
with a dish cloth in her hand.  "If not, I can think of a few things."

  "We have lots to do, Mom," Pete said stopping the swing with his bare foot.  He didn't
want her to assign them some chore they would both hate like folding laundry or
something equally boring.

  "Well good, and stop banging the swing against the house, it sounds like a thunder bolt
coming through the kitchen."  She walked back in to the house.

  "What have we got to do?" Meg asked after their mother had left.  She started chewing
on the end of her pig tail, a habit Pete hated.

  "Stop eating your hair dummy," he said.

  "Well you told Mommy we had lots of things to do, what are they?"

  "I don't know, I just didn't want her to make us clean out the barn or some other dumb
thing."

  "Oh," she said releasing the hair from her mouth.

 They sat quietly for a few moments watching the wind blowing the leaves from
side to side in the trees.  Pete eyed his ball and bat leaning against the steps.

  "Want me to hit you a few balls?" he asked Meg.

 She wrinkled her nose.  "That's no fun.  All I get to do is run after the stupid ball
while you hit it all over the place."

  "We could play explorers," Pete suggested.

  "What's that?" Meg asked.

  "It's guys who are real brave and go places nobody's ever been before and find stuff."
  Meg thought that over for a minute.  "How can we do that, we've been everywhere
around here a hundred times."

  "I know that but we can make-believe."

  "Okay, it's better than sitting here waiting for Mommy to find us something yuckky to
do."

 Pete went in the house and up to his room.  He rummaged through his closet until
he found an old knapsack.  He heard his mother singing softly to herself in the living room
as she ironed in front of the television.  He went into the kitchen and rummaged in the
pantry for some cookies and chips.  The refrigerator held a few cans of soda and he
quickly put them in the bottom of the knapsack with the cookies and chips on top.
Explorers, no matter how brave, must get hungry, he thought.

  "Meg and I are going exploring," he called to his mother as he walked out the front door.

  "You watch out for your sister," he heard his mother call as they walked down the steps.

  "Where we going?" Meg asked as they climbed under the fence of Molly's corral.

 Pete shrugged and kept on walking.  It was going to be a hot day.  The sun had
burned off the early morning dew and the grass under their feet crunched as they walked.
Molly eyed them from the corner of the corral as if hoping they didn't want to go for any
rides today.

 They climbed under the far fence and faced the woods.  Pete stopped to think
about which way to go.  He knew straight ahead would lead them to the creek which
wasn't deep because it hadn't rained for a while.  It wasn't much fun if it wasn't gurgling
around the rocks and held small fish you could catch with your hands if you were real fast.
 To the left, about three miles, was Mr. Merriweather's farm and he didn't like kids
hanging around his place.  Not that you'd really want to because he raised pigs and it didn't
smell very good most of the time, especially in the summer.

 To the right was just woods and must go somewhere but Pete really didn't know
where.  He'd gone down that way but not very far, maybe a mile or so and there was
nothing but trees and bushes that were sometimes sharp with little red berries they'd been
told never to eat because they were poison.

  "Let's go this way," Pete said to Meg and headed to the unknown right.

  "What's down here?" Meg asked.

 Just like a dumb girl, Pete thought.  "I don't know," he answered.  "That's why
we're playing explorers, to go places we've never been."

 Meg nodded and followed.  She was glad she was wearing jeans and a long sleeve
shirt even though it was hot.  Some of the tree branches looked like they could hurt if they
scratched you.  Meg heard a squirrel chatter in the trees above her as if he were angry that
people had come into his part of the woods. She looked up and saw him sitting on the
branch of a tree.  We won't bother you Mr. Squirrel, she said to herself.  Pete laughed at
her when she talked to the wild animals out loud although it was all right when he talked
to Molly and once she'd even heard him talking to the chickens when it was his turn to
gather the eggs.

 They'd walked what seemed ten miles but they knew it wasn't really that far when
they came to a clearing. There were no trees to shade the sun and it shown brightly down
on a small pond surrounded by white sand.  It wasn't really big enough to call a pond,
maybe just a giant puddle coming out of the ground.  Pete remembered hearing his father
talk about underground springs, in fact they used one to pump up water for his mother's
garden.

  "Wow," Meg said.  "This is great."

 They ran to the center of the clearing and collapsed in the sand by the tiny pond.

The sand was soft and velvety as they ran their hands through it.  Pete looked into the
water, it was clear and looked cold.  He longed to take a drink but remembered his father's
caution about drinking standing water.  He pulled the chips and cookies from his knapsack
and reached for the soda cans.  Meg took one gratefully and opened it with a "pop".

  "This place is nice," Meg said taking a long drink from her can.

  "I told you we'd find something great didn't I?" Pete said.

  "I bet I could build a sand castle like at the beach," Meg said and began scooping sand
into a pile.

 Pete left Meg to build her sand castle and walked around the pond.  He looked for
fish in the water but didn't see any.  He scooped his hand in the water and it was as cold as
he thought it would be.  He was about to splash some on his face when he heard Meg call.

  "Look what I found."
 He walked back to find Meg holding a funny egg shaped object in her hand.

"What's this?" she asked him.

 Pete knelt in the sand beside her and took it from her hand. It was a little larger
than a big potato and colored pale brown.  He turned it over and looked at it from all
angles.  He thumped it with his fingers, it sounded hollow.  "I don't know what it is," he
admitted.

  "Can I take it home with me?" Meg asked.

 Pete shrugged, it didn't matter to him.  "Sure, why not," he said.

 They left the clearing a little later vowing to come back the next day.  It was a
great place to hang around, play in the sand and Pete was going to bring back his fish net
next time.  Maybe there were fish hiding deep in the pond.

 When Meg got home she headed straight for the chicken coop.  She walked in,
closing the door carefully behind her.  It wouldn't do for the hens to escape.  She walked
to the far end of the little house where her favorite hen, Daisy May, sat dozing on her nest.

  "Will you keep this warm for me?" she asked Daisy May.  "I don't even know if it's an
egg but if it is you're the best hen for the job."

 The hen made a slight clucking noise that Meg took to be a "yes" and Meg slipped
the potato shaped object under the straw of Daisy May's nest.

  "What did you do with that thing you found?" Pete asked later while they were wiping
the dishes after supper.

  "I gave it to Daisy May to take care of," she answered.

 Pete shrugged, he supposed it wasn't a bad idea if it was an egg and if it wasn't it
wouldn't make any difference.

 The next few weeks were busy ones for the children.  Dad brought home a mare
and foal they were horse sitting for a neighbor and they spent endless hours taking care of
the mare and watching the funny antics of the baby horse as it learned how to run and
play.  Sometimes the foal would eat tiny treats from their outstretched hands.  Pete forgot
about the funny potato thing being taken care of so carefully by Daisy May but Meg didn't.
Every morning, sometimes even before breakfast, she would go to the hen house and
check on it.  It never changed, just sat there in the straw all brown and fat.
 Meg was beginning to think it was just an old rock and she should throw it away
when she spotted a small crack on its smooth surface.

  "My goodness, did you see this?" she asked Daisy May, rubbing her fingers softly over
the crack.

 Daisy May clucked an answer.  Maybe it really is an egg, Meg thought to herself,
and if it is, I wonder what's inside.

 The answer to Meg's question came a few days later when she arrived at the hen
house.  It was late morning and raining hard enough to make puddles in the yard and her
mother to worry about her tiny tomato plants in the kitchen garden getting squashed.

 When she arrived at the rear of the hen house she found Daisy May sitting on the
floor instead of her warm, dry nest.  "What's the matter?" she asked looking into Daisy
May's nest.

  "Oh boy," she said aloud as she saw the potato egg shell cracking and flaking away.  She
longed to reach out and help what ever was inside by picking away parts of the shell but
knew that wasn't a good idea.  Instead she watched, holding her breath.  She wanted to
run and get Pete but was afraid something would happen while she was gone.

 Soon she saw a little green snout easing its way between pieces of brown shell.
Green, she thought, its not a chicken I guess, nobody ever saw a green chicken.  When the
green head was finally visible Meg was amazed.  Little brown eyes looked at her from
under what looked like a hood or hat sitting on top of his head.  He looked at her for a
moment and then began wiggling his way to escape the shell completely.  When he was
free of his shell Meg saw that he had two arms and two legs each ending in tiny hands.
There were claws on the ends of each five fingers and toes.  He was about as long as her
ruler in school and had a fat tail.  Meg wondered if it was a lizard but if it was, it was one
she had never seen before and she thought she knew all the kinds of lizards and frogs that
lived in the area.

  "Hi," she whispered reaching out a finger to touch his funny hat.  The little creature
looked at her and shook its head.  It reached down and took a piece of straw in its mouth
and began chewing.  It must have not tasted very good because it soon spit it out.

  "You must be hungry," she said.  "Straw doesn't taste very good does it?"

 The little creature looked at her as if agreeing that the straw wasn't very tasty.

  "If you come with me I'll get you something much better," she told the little creature.
She reached out carefully and put two hands under his stomach.  She picked him up, he
felt leathery but kind of soft too, and tucked him inside her rain slicker.  He didn't wiggle
much and poked his little green head out to see where they were going.

  "You can get back on your nest now, Daisy May," she called.  "Thank you for hatching
this little guy."

 Meg made her way out of the hen house and ran up the muddy path to the back
door.  She peeked in the kitchen and saw it was empty.  She quickly went up the back
stairs and into her room.  She put the little green lizard on her bed and hung up her
dripping rain coat.

  "You sit there like a good boy and I'll run down and find you something to eat, okay,"
she told him and left her room, closing the door carefully behind her.  She wondered
where Pete was, wouldn't he be surprised when he saw what had hatched from the strange
looking egg.

 She found Pete in the kitchen looking in the refrigerator for something to eat.

"Guess what?" she said.

  "What?" Pete answered.

  "You'll see," she laughed and snuck under him to get a head of lettuce from the bottom
drawer of the refrigerator.  "Come on," she said.  "Come up to my room."

 Pete was curious as he followed her up the stairs and in to her room.  "What's the
big deal?" he asked after she had closed the door behind them.

  "Look," she said pointing to the little green lizard who was still sitting on the bed.  He
had snuggled under the dress of one of Meg's dolls and only his head could be seen.

  "Holy cow, what's that?" Pete said running over to the bed.  He sat down on the edge
and looked at the green snout and brown eyes.

  "It's what was in that egg I found at the pond, it hatched this morning.  What do you
think it is?"

 Pete pulled aside the doll and uncovered the rest of the creature.  He looked it up
and down and reached out to touch it's hat.  "Wow," he said.  "I might be a little crazy but
I think it's a baby dinosaur."

  "You are lots crazy, my teacher said dinosaur's died zillions of years ago."

  "I know that dummy but this looks just like one I saw a picture of in one of my books."

 Silently Meg had to agree that Pete did know a lot more things than she did.  He
always had his nose in a book and read everything he could find.  "Go get your book and
let's see," Meg said.

 Pete left the room shaking his head.  He had to be wrong, there were no such
things as dinosaurs anymore, but it sure did look like one.  He couldn't remember the
name, there were so many, but he was almost certain.

 When he returned to Meg's room with the book under his arm he found Meg
sitting cross-legged on the bed with the baby in her lap happily eating lettuce.

  "He sure was hungry," Meg said as Pete sat beside her and opened the book.  She
watched him flip through the pages until he found the one he was looking for.

  "See," he said pointing to a color picture.

 Meg agreed it looked very much like the baby she held in her lap who had finished
the lettuce and had closed his eyes for a nap.

  "What's it called?" Meg asked.

  "A Protoceratops," Pete answered.  "He's the right size and has that funny hood thing,
short legs, wow, I really think it is."

  "I can't even say the Pro word," Meg said. "I'm going to call him Protie for short."

 Pete just nodded.  He was busy reading about Meg's Protie.  "You're right to give
him lettuce, he's a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat." he told Meg.

  "Can we keep him?" Meg asked holding Protie protectively in her arms.  "He's mine, I
found him."

  "I don't know, if the scientists found out we had a baby dinosaur they would want him
for sure," Pete answered.

  "Well nobody can have him, look he likes me," Meg said.

  "We'll just have to make sure nobody finds out we have him," Pete said.  "I guess it won't
be so hard out here on the farm.  Nobody comes around anyway."

 Meg smiled.

 Pete and Meg made Protie a nice place to live in their playhouse far out in the back
yard.  He had a nice bed made out of Meg's old doll blankets and a couple of squeeze toys
that Pete went out and bought at the feed store.  Protie loved to eat and the children spent
a lot of their time picking him fresh green grass and little tender roots he loved.  He even
liked to eat hay and Meg didn't think Molly minded sharing with him.  He grew very fast
but according to Pete's book he shouldn't get any bigger than one of Mr. Merriweather's
pigs.  They hoped so, it would be hard to hide him if he grew much bigger.  As it was they
were afraid their mother or father would see him. He loved to come out of his house and
play in the grass and would chase them like a puppy.  He didn't make very much noise, just
a little squeak once in a while.  Pete trained him to come to his whistle and to stay where
he was told. Meg thought that was silly until Pete reminded her it was for his own safety
and then she agreed.

 One day Pete and Meg took Protie out to the big field to play.  The grass was high
and they knew no one could see Protie running through the grass and rolling happily, glad
to be out of his house.  Meg and Pete sat on the grass watching him as he looked for the
nicest shoots to eat.

  "What's going to happen when we go back to school?" Meg asked.  "Who's going to
watch Protie and make sure he's safe?"

  "I don't know, I've been thinking about that too." Pete answered.

  "Do you suppose we should tell Mommy about him?  She likes animals and I don't think
she would be scared of him." Meg asked.

  "I don't think she'd be scared of him either, but I don't know how she'd feel about having
a real live dinosaur living in her yard."

  "I don't think she'd mind," Meg said.  "Not at all, I'm going to tell her."

 Pete didn't know if that was such a good idea but with school starting soon he
thought they didn't have any choice.  "Okay," he said.  "I guess we have to."

 The next morning Meg was sitting in her room thinking of a good way to tell her
mother about Protie.  All of a sudden she heard a loud scream coming from the yard.  She
ran to her window and looked out.  "Oh boy," she said out loud.  She didn't have to figure
a way to tell her mother about Protie anymore.  He was sitting in the middle of the kitchen
garden happily chewing on her mother's fattest red tomatoes.  Her mother was standing at
the edge of the garden with her hands on her hips shaking her head.

 Meg ran from her room as fast as she could and yelled for Pete.  He dashed from
his room and they ran out to the back yard.  "What in the world is that?" their mother said
pointing to Protie.  "Don't get too close, it might be dangerous."

  "Oh Mom," Meg said.  "He's not dangerous, that's Protie."

 Pete whistled in his special way and Protie lifted his head and raced to greet the
children.  Meg got on her knees and put her arms around his fat neck with its funny hood.

  "He's ours," Meg said looking up at her mother.  "I found him when he was just an egg
and Daisy May hatched him for me."

  "An egg?" their mother said.  "Funny looking pigs don't come from eggs."

  "He's not a pig, he's a dinosaur," Pete said.  "He lives in our old play house.  I don't know
how he got out.  I'm sorry he went in your garden.  Meg and I will clean up after him."

  "A dinosaur, that can't be possible," their mother said.

 Meg led Protie back to the play house and Pete ran up to his room to get his
dinosaur book.

 Later Meg and Pete were sitting on the porch swing with their mother between
them.  Pete was showing his mother the picture of a Protoceratops and explaining how
they came to find him.

  "We've got to tell someone," Mother said.  "Do you realize how important this is."

  "Pete said if anyone knew they would want to take him away from us.  I don't want to
lose him, he's my best friend." Meg said.

 Mother put an arm around Meg's shoulders.  "I guess maybe you're right," she
said.

  "Does this mean you will let us keep him?" Meg asked.

  "Well, I'll have to talk to your father but I don't see why we can't keep him for a little
while," their mother said slowly.

  "He won't hurt anybody," Pete said.  "He's not one of those huge monster looking things
and he only eats grass and hay."

  "And tomatoes," their mother laughed.

  "We won't let him eat any more of your garden, I promise," Meg said.

 Pete and Meg gathered some hay and green grass and walked to the play house to
tell Protie he could stay.  Protie was standing in the doorway with his little green snout
sticking over the edge of the barrier they had put up to keep him inside when they weren't
there to take care of him.  He was watching them approach and Meg knew he was smiling.

  "Well Protie," Pete said patting his hood.  "You're going to live with us from now on
which means I better find a better way to make sure you don't escape and get lost or eat
any more of Ma's garden."

 Pete went off to find and fix the place Protie had found to escape while Meg sat on
the floor.  Protie lay down and put his nose in her lap waiting to be patted and scratched.

  "I love you Protie," Meg said.  "And like Pete told you you're going to be with us
forever.  Mommy said you could stay, isn't that great?"

 Protie wiggled his fat body and banged his long green tail on the floor.

  "Maybe later on when you get smarter and learn to mind really good you can live in the
house like you were a guard dog or something.  You'd be good at that, I know you
would." Meg continued.

 Pete found and fixed the escape hole Protie had discovered.  They filled up his
water dish and brought him a big pile of hay from the barn.

  "It's going to be lots of fun having Protie around, isn't it?" Meg said to Pete as they
walked back to the house after taking care of the little dinosaur.

  "Lots of work too," Pete said.

  "I'll help and I was thinking we could go back to that secret place and see if we could
find some more dinosaur eggs.  Don't you think Protie would like to have a friend?"
 Well, Pete thought, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have another Protie.  He'd have
to think about that.

                                                                  end