Eggs

 The housekeeper let out a deep breath. The early rush for breakfast was over. Thankfully. Mr. and Mrs. Dunlop had left for work. Alex and Mel had left to catch their bus to school. Now there was only young Nicky for Monica to deal with, and Nicky was really no trouble at all.

 As housekeeping jobs go, this was a pretty good gig. Monica knew that. Her routine was to arrive early, prepare breakfast, spend the day doing chores, prepare the evening meal ready for the oven or the microwave depending on what time the adult Dunlops got home, and keep an eye on the kids until a parent turned up.

 She got on well with the whole family, and had built a good relationship with the three youngest Dunlops. There was an especially good rapport with Nicky, she thought. Well, you would hope so, with the child being home for so much of the time. Nicky was mostly polite and well behaved, as well as being uncommonly bright, in Monica’s opinion.

 All in all, it was less stressful than teaching had been. Monica truly didn't miss the 'politics' of the profession, dealing with administrators, cantankerous parents and even difficult other staff. But in this job she still got that wonderful frisson of pleasure from imparting knowledge and helping to mould a young mind.

“What would you like for breakfast this morning, Nicky?” she asked as her young charge wandered into the kitchen.

“Umm… a boiled egg and some toast fingers. Please,” came the reply.

 Monica nodded and smiled. She’d always been a stickler for politeness, to the delight of Mr. and Mrs. Dunlop, and it was good to see the lesson was sticking with their youngest child at least.

 Nicky sat at the table, little legs swinging above the floor, and watched as the bread went into the toaster, and a saucepan of water went on the stove to boil.

 As she worked, the housekeeper asked Nicky casually, “Do you know where eggs come from?”

“Mum keeps them in the door of the fridge.”

 That brought a smile from Monica, but also the realization that here was an opportunity for a little teaching.

“Okay, before they go into the fridge – where do they come from?”

 Nicky thought for a moment. “Umm… the supermarket. Or Mr. Yadav’s shop sometimes.”

“Well, yes, that’s true. But do you know where the supermarket and the shop get the eggs from?”

“From a farm,” said Nicky, remembering something in a book.

“Yes, often they do. How do the farmers get the eggs?”

 That question required a lot more thought, and the toast had popped and been buttered before a tentative answer was offered. 

“Do they grow them? Is that what an eggplant is?”

 The housekeeper laughed. “No, that’s a type of vegetable. Good thinking, but not right, I’m afraid. Eggs come from chickens.”

“Oh! Um… how do the chickens get them?” asked Nicky, surprised, but now intrigued by the progressive line of enquiry.

“They lay them.  Female chickens start to lay eggs when they’re about twenty weeks old…” Monica started to explain as she carefully placed one of the items in question into the boiling water and checked her watch.

 Nicky interrupted. “Wait… what do you mean, ‘lay’ them? Where does the egg come from?”

“Well, er, out of the chicken’s bottom.”

“What? Like poop? Ee-uuw!” Nicky made a face, mouth twisting into a shape not dissimilar to the orifice where eggs come from, oddly enough.

“Eggs and poop do come out of the same hole, but that’s okay – they come from different places inside the chicken and don’t get mixed up together.”

“Okay… if you’re sure about that,” said Nicky, looking uncertainly at an unboiled egg on the kitchen bench.

“Definitely!” Monica reassured the child.

“So why do the chickens lay these eggs?”

“Er, something inside the chicken’s body makes it produce eggs regularly…”

 Suddenly the conversation wasn’t quite going where Monica had planned. It was easy to underestimate Nicky’s intelligence, she realised.

“How regularly?”

 The housekeeper was very glad she’d spent much of her own childhood living on a farm, and had taken a keen interest in her own family’s hens!

“It varies between chickens. Some might produce an egg once or twice per week. When a chicken is young and healthy it might be about every 25 hours.”

“There are 24 hours in a day, right? So the chicken lays an egg every day almost!” Nicky was good with numbers. Someday some teacher is going to be very impressed, intimidated, or both, mused the housekeeper.

“Yes. If she lays her very first egg at ten o’clock on a Monday morning, the next will pop out at eleven on Tuesday, then noon on Wednesday, and so on. But most chickens only lay eggs during the daytime, so when that pattern gets to when it’s dark she’ll stop, and lay her next egg in the morning when it’s light.”

“Okay, that’s when – but why is she making them?”

 Monica made a little “Hmm” noise as she used tongs to pull the egg from the boiling water. She pondered her answer as she placed the breakfast dainty in an eggcup to cool slightly, then turned off the stove. This might be a more appropriate line of questioning for Mr. or Mrs. Dunlop to deal with, but she also knew Nicky would not now be distracted or redirected. So, an honest but cautious answer was required.

“If there’s a rooster spending time with the chicken, then some of those eggs might get what’s called ‘fertilized’. That means that a chick grows inside the egg. That’s how we get new chickens. But most eggs don’t get fertilized, so there are lots more eggs than chickens.”

“Otherwise we’d have dozens and dozens of chickens in the supermarket instead of all those eggs.” Nicky’s logic was sound. Suddenly a new thought dawned. “Do white eggs come from white chickens, and brown eggs from brown chickens?”

“Not necessarily,” replied Monica, happy with the change of tack. “Black chickens don’t lay black eggs! Different breeds usually lay slightly different coloured eggs, and each individual chicken will produce pretty much the same colour. Sometimes a bit darker or lighter, or with little speckles – depending on what they’ve been eating.”

“So… if chickens make eggs to make more chickens… where did the first chicken come from?”

“Or, where did the first egg come from? I don’t think anyone has ever quite figured that one out! Now, are you ready for your boiled egg?”

“Yes please. With no poop in it!”