Foy scrambled over the chain link fence that separated his backyard from the base of Sleeping Lion Mountain, the name the locals gave to the last foothill of the Davis Mountains that ended or began, depending on how you thought of it, at the edge of their town. Sometimes he walked to school down Fort street if he wanted to walk with Mickey Wallace. Mickey’s mom always had sweet-rolls or doughnuts for breakfast, and you got to wind your way through the junked cars to get to their back door. One of them was even a limousine that Mickey’s dad swore he would get running one day and give them all a ride.
 
But on this day Foy wanted to walk across the base of the mountain. The ground sloped up sharply from the backyards into boulders and crags and massive outcroppings of weathered rock. Foy picked his way along the base of the rocks. He climbed a huge boulder and stood on the top, proudly looking over the town. His mother told him that this giant rock had tumbled down from the top of the mountain thousands or maybe millions of years before. She said all the rocks at the bottom had fallen down. He said he’d never seen one fall, but she said it only happened maybe once every hundred years, so you probably wouldn’t. Foy bent down and scratched FD into the top of the rock with his pocket knife. He then placed a fist-sized rock on top of his initials to hide them. It was nice that they were hidden and only his to see.
 
He climbed off the boulder and noticed a broken egg at the base of it. He squatted to inspect the egg and drew a sharp breath. The little egg had cracked perfectly into two jagged parts. In between, still intact, was a messy yolk and a tiny, barely-formed baby bird.
 
“Wow,” he whispered.
 
There were no feathers on it. It was embryonic, but far enough along to have a bird’s shape. The beak was there. Its eyes were large globes, sealed shut with veiny tracings on them. The bird lay motionless, arrested just before its chance at life. The sadness of it gave Foy a solemn feeling. He touched one half of the egg. The slimy mass jiggled a little, so he drew his hand away quickly. He stared at the bird, fascinated. This was what birds looked like before they were born. He looked at every part of the bird, his eyes frantic like a voyeur at a window. He was seeing something people normally did not see. And there was a strange, guilty pleasure in it.

He tarried so long that he would be late for school. But that was so obviously superseded by this important find that it never occurred to him to be worried. Clearly this miraculous thing ought to be taken to school. Mrs. Wilkinson would want the whole class to see how baby birds were formed inside their eggs. A sense of duty filled him, and the anticipated praise from his teacher made him happy. He looked around to find something to put the egg in, but there was nothing. The back two pages of his science book were blank. He assumed that was for note taking. The gathering of a specimen seemed rather scientific, so he thought it was right to tear out the pages and wrap the bird in them. Of course it was right. Otherwise the specimen would be lost.

Using his two index fingers, he gently poked the halves of the egg back together. Some clear goo trailed out as he picked up the egg, but he seemed to have gotten the egg intact, with the bird inside. He laid the egg on one of the sheets of paper, and it fell open again. This time the bird slid out along with some of the yolk. Foy got a stick and nudged the bird back into the shell and pushed the two pieces together again. He wadded the papers around the egg to hold it together until he could get it to school.

With his textbooks under one arm and the crumpled papers in his fist, Foy ran the remaining 200 yards to the back of Dirks Anderson Elementary School. By the time he got there the bell had rung, and the playground was empty. The swings had slowed and stopped, hanging motionless from their chains. The silence of the playground made it seem wrong that he was there, and he became afraid. He ran as fast as he could across the sand to the back door and went in. Once in the building, knowing that he wasn’t allowed to run, he hunched his shoulders and walked as fast as he could, keeping his upper body as motionless as possible, as if that might make him less noticeable. He opened the door to his class and slipped inside.

Mrs. Wilkinson turned from the blackboard.

“Foy Davis, you’re late again. You need to go to the office and get a slip.”

Foy’s mood didn’t change, so certain was he of his complete absolution when he showed the class the treasure he had brought. Perhaps they would stop class and have an entire lesson on the development of baby birds. He was certain his teacher would explain how eggs were made and what the gooey stuff on the inside was for.

He stepped forward.

“Wait, Mrs. Wilkinson. I found something important that the whole class should see because you don’t normally see it. It’s what’s inside eggs if you leave them alone. Not chicken eggs but bird eggs. You can see the little bird in there. We could do some science about it, like a science project or something, or maybe just everyone comes up to see, so that everyone can see it.”

He held out the crumpled paper, cradled in both hands. Mrs. Wilkinson frowned and stepped forward, bending over to see. Foy peeled back the paper revealing the egg and the bird.

A horrified look came on Mrs. Wilkinson’s face and she jerked away.

“Oh goodness gracious, Foy, where did you get that nasty thing?”

Foy looked into his hands. The eggshells had become further broken and flattened. The shaking from his running had caused the inside of the egg to disintegrate into a formless goo with a bloody center. A girl from the front row jumped up and peered into the paper. She shrieked in horror. At once half the class jumped to their feet and began pushing to the front of the room. Mrs. Wilkinson shouted and grabbed shoulders, turning kids around and sending them back to their seats.

“Everyone get back to your seats, NOW!” She took the papers and egg from Foy and jerked 5 tissues, one after another, out of the box on her desk. She started wrapping them around the mess. Suddenly she froze. She looked closely at the papers.

“Foy, did you tear these out of one of your textbooks?”

Foy’s heart began to pound in his chest. Suddenly things he didn’t think were wrong were turning out to be wrong. Lots of things. Who could tell what might be wrong next?

“They were just the two back pages. They didn’t have anything written on them.”

Mrs. Wilkinson held up one of the sheets of paper. It was crumpled but clearly had printed words on it. She wadded it up with the other papers and dropped them all in the trash can.

Foy was stunned. He hadn’t seen any words on the papers.

“Maybe it was just the last page that didn’t have anything on it. Were they maybe just some of the little words at the back that don’t mean as much?”

“Foy, your parents are going to have to pay for the damage to this textbook. What were you thinking?”

Foy stood with his mouth slightly open. He looked at the trash can. Somehow the little bird was in there, but it had become a horrible gooey mess.

“Foy Davis, I asked you a question. What were you thinking?”

Foy realized with a start that she actually wanted an answer to her question. Desperately wanting to please her, he tried to find something to say. In his mind there was the mountain, large and jagged and dangerous. And he had walked there, a little boy. And maybe kids shouldn’t walk there or at least this was showing how you could get hurt in the world. And how delicate life was right by the sharp rocks, for boys and birds. And how the beauty of the bird was a thing everyone should see, but he hadn’t known it would get ruined so easily because it didn’t seem like something that was just about to be a bird could be that fragile. You’d think something almost alive would at least last until you got it to school. And how it all seemed so good but now it was bad. And how could that happen? Even the goodness of it didn’t last very long.

Now he realized how badly he needed to go to the bathroom. He had been in such a hurry he hadn’t stopped to go. He wrapped one leg around the other, bent forward, and pressed his hand into the zipper of his jeans.

“I thought it could be for science or something,” he stammered. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

The children snickered. Mrs. Wilkinson snapped a harsh look at the class.

“Foy, don’t ever do this again. Go to the office and tell them you need a tardy slip. If you get one more you’ll have detention.”

“Yes maam,” he said. He opened the door and ran toward the restroom. Behind him he heard Mrs. Wilkinson shout, “Don’t run in the halls!”

He slowed and walked with little mincing steps, moving his feet as fast as he thought he could without it being counted as running.

rlp