Eggs with Legs Read online

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  Published by

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers

  a division of

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Text copyright © 1996 by Judy Delton

  Illustrations copyright © 1996 by Alan Tiegreen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The trademarks Yearling® and Dell® are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-83291-7

  v3.1

  For Beverly Vavoulis

  Lexiphanic, orthodontic, lethonomic,

  Sesquipedalic, yardarmic, defenestratic:

  Words are our bond, our life and our end.

  Thank you, dear Beverly, for being my friend.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books You Will Enjoy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 The Fake Holiday

  2 The Big Plan

  3 Up to No Good

  4 “Hi, Kitten”

  5 The Great Idea

  6 Zipping Along

  7 Slippery Zippers

  Pee Wee Scout Song

  Pee Wee Scout Pledge

  CHAPTER 1

  The Fake Holiday

  “Do you know what day it is next week?” asked Molly Duff.

  “Sure, I know,” said Sonny Stone. “It’s Sunday. That’s a day next week!”

  “And Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday!” said Tracy Barnes, laughing.

  “And Thursday and Friday and Saturday!” said Tim Noon. “Those are all days that come next week!”

  The Pee Wees were on their way to their meeting at Mrs. Peters’s house. She was their leader. They were early, so they sat on a park bench in the sun because spring felt so good. The snow was gone and they were all eager for summer, when they could ride bikes and go to the beach and eat Popsicles.

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Molly. “There’s a holiday next week.”

  “What holiday?” asked Rachel Myers. “There’s no holiday. Christmas is over and it’s not the Fourth of July yet.”

  “You mean Easter, I’ll bet,” said Kevin Moe.

  Molly liked Kevin. He and Jody George were her two favorites of the boys in Troop 23. Jody was handicapped and had a wheelchair Molly loved to ride in. She even wished she had one of her own.

  Jody was away on a spring trip with his parents in Florida. His family did a lot of traveling. But Kevin was here, and Molly was almost ready to say Easter was the holiday she meant. But she couldn’t lie. Even though no one would know.

  She shook her head and said, “No, it’s April Fools’ Day.”

  Roger White groaned. “That’s no holiday!” he said. “Where do you see ads that say ‘Celebrate April Fools’ with us,’ or ‘Give your mom a tulip plant for April Fools’ Day’?”

  The Pee Wees all seemed to agree with Roger.

  “We don’t get the day off from school,” said Rachel.

  “And they don’t even make cards that say ‘Happy April Fools’ Day,’ ” said Patty Baker. “I never saw them, anyway. It must be kind of like a fake holiday.”

  “If it were a real holiday,” said Lisa Ronning, “Mrs. Peters would have a Pee Wee party for us. And what would she put on a cake? What does an April Fool look like?”

  Kenny Baker nodded. “On the Fourth of July you can have red-white-and-blue frosting. And on Christmas you have red and green, and on Easter you have candy eggs and rabbits. But there’s nothing you can put on an April Fools’ cake. No way. April Fools’ is not a holiday.”

  The Pee Wees looked bored and disgusted with Molly’s idea. They began to talk about other things, like the ice rink that had melted and the crabby new teacher in second grade.

  “I think April Fools’ is a holiday,” said Molly’s best friend, Mary Beth Kelly.

  It felt good to Molly to have at least one person who agreed with her. But maybe Mary Beth was just being loyal. Maybe she felt sorry for Molly. Maybe she really believed it was a silly idea but didn’t want to hurt her best friend’s feelings. Molly hated pity.

  “I mean, it’s on the calendar, you know. My calendar says ‘April Fools’ Day,’ as big as life. If that’s not proof, I don’t know what is.”

  But Molly did not need proof. She knew she was right.

  “It doesn’t matter if the others don’t celebrate,” Mary Beth added. “You and I can. What should we do?”

  “Well, the way people celebrate is to play tricks on each other,” said Molly. “I think we should think of a good one to play on Roger.”

  Roger White was the meanest Pee Wee in Troop 23. He was always tripping people or hitting them, or showing off. On a recent farm visit, he had pushed Tracy into the muddy pigpen.

  The girls looked at him. He was dangling a rubber spider down the neck of Sonny’s T-shirt. Sonny was screaming.

  “He deserves a good trick,” said Mary Beth. “Let’s think of something spectacular!”

  “He’ll do something mean to get back at us, though,” said Molly.

  “Not if he doesn’t know who did it,” said Mary Beth. “Where can we find some tricks to play? Do you think there’s a book of April Fools’ tricks?”

  “I think we can make up our own,” said Molly mysteriously.

  She got up and started down the street to Mrs. Peters’s house, and Mary Beth and the others followed. When they got there, they went down Mrs. Peters’s steps and into her basement. On top of the big table where they had their meetings was a big pink plastic rabbit. It was inflatable, and it had an orange carrot in its plastic paw.

  “Well!” said their leader. “It’s a shame to be indoors on such a nice day. If the backyard wasn’t so muddy, we could have our meeting outside. But we’ll just open up the windows and let some of the spring come in.”

  After she did this, she counted to be sure all eleven Pee Wees were present, and then she said, “There are two holidays coming up soon, and I thought we would talk about them and see if we can do something special to celebrate.”

  “See,” whispered Mary Beth. “Mrs. Peters is going to tell us how to celebrate April Fools’ day!”

  Everyone there wondered if Molly was right—maybe this was one of the holidays Mrs. Peters had in mind.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Big Plan

  “The first holiday that is coming up,” Mrs. Peters said, “is Easter. And I thought we might dye eggs and make baskets for shut-ins.

  “The other one is Mother’s Day. And of course we want to do something nice for our mothers.”

  Mrs. Peters had let Molly down! All the Pee Wees looked at Molly, as if to say “See, I told you so! April Fools’ Day isn’t a holiday!”

  “Hey, Roger can’t celebrate
Mother’s Day!” shouted Sonny. “He doesn’t have a mother. You have to have a mother to celebrate.”

  Roger looked angry. He didn’t like to be told he was missing anything, especially anything as important as a mother. Molly felt a little sorry for him. A trick was one thing, but to hurt his feelings was another.

  “Tim doesn’t have a dad either,” Roger shouted to Sonny. “What is he going to do on Father’s Day?”

  Mrs. Peters held up her arms in alarm. “Often,” she said, “people have others who take the role of a parent. Like an aunt, or a friend, or an uncle. It doesn’t have to be an actual parent.”

  “Mrs. Peters has opened up a can of worms now,” whispered Rachel to Molly. “This is one of those social issues people don’t want to face. My mom told me so,” she added wisely. “My mom’s going to school to get a degree in psychology. She’s going to be a psychologist.”

  Rachel’s dad was a dentist. Sometimes Rachel liked to show off and brag about her family, but she could also be a very good friend. When Molly had shared her pen pal with Rachel, she had been very grateful. And when Molly’s dad had lost his job, Rachel’s mother had sent a nice dinner over to the Duffs to cheer them up.

  “Now that her mom’s in school, she thinks she knows everything,” whispered Mary Beth to Molly.

  “Well, she’s right, you know,” said Molly. “Mrs. Peters did open up a can of worms.”

  Roger’s eyes were red now, and so were Tim’s. What would their leader do? Maybe Rachel would have to phone her mother and have her come to the meeting and bring her textbooks and help out!

  “It wasn’t Mrs. Peters’s fault,” said Mary Beth. “It was Sonny’s. He had to go and yell at Roger about not having a mother.”

  Mrs. Peters took the “can of worms” into the laundry room. She put her arms around Roger and Tim and talked to them privately. When they came back they were smiling. At least a little.

  Mrs. Peters went on with the meeting as if there had been no can of worms.

  “I think it’s time we start planning what we will do for these two holidays, Pee Wee–wise,” she said. “Besides celebrating, we want to do something to help others, and to earn a holiday badge. I thought we could combine the two days and get one badge, called a spring badge.”

  The Pee Wees cheered. They loved badges, and badge talk, and earning badges. They loved to collect them and pin them on their blouses and shirts.

  Molly got out her notebook, because she felt better writing everything down. She loved to make lists. And keep track of what to do for badges.

  “I thought we could do three things to earn this badge,” said their leader.

  Molly wrote a big “1” in her notebook.

  “Number one is, I thought of dyeing eggs and making up colorful Easter baskets for the people in the nursing home. You can all be thinking of what else you’d like to put in your baskets.”

  Molly wrote down, “Find things to put in baskets.”

  “I think they would enjoy that,” Mrs. Peters continued, “and we could combine it with a visit. Many of the senior citizens there don’t have visitors, and we could brighten their day by talking to them, and listening to them.”

  “Some of them can’t hear,” said Roger. “I know one old geezer there who doesn’t know what you’re saying. And their stories are boring.”

  The Pee Wees glared at Roger. They did not like to hear him call old people geezers. Some of them had grandparents in the nursing home. Molly wondered how Roger would like to be called a geezer. Or a pip-squeak.

  “They know we’re there,” said Mrs. Peters, glaring at Roger. “Whether they can hear us or not.”

  Hands were waving. “Mrs. Peters,” called Ashley Baker. Ashley was Patty and Kenny Baker’s cousin from California. She was a temporary Scout because she was just visiting. But she was in Minnesota so much that she didn’t seem like a temporary Pee Wee to Molly.

  “In California we went to the Golden West Retirement home and cooked dinner for senior citizens on St. Patrick’s Day. We made everything green. Green beans, green peas, green chicken, green potatoes, even green cake.”

  The Pee Wees stared at Ashley. They had never heard of green potatoes. They do strange things in California, thought Molly. Ashley always told stories about things that no one ever did in Minnesota. Maybe it was because of the earthquakes. Maybe pictures fell off the walls and onto peoples’ heads and made them odd.

  “That’s very nice,” said Mrs. Peters. “I am sure the seniors enjoyed the dinner very much.”

  “They did,” said Ashley. “They all had seconds.”

  “But I think a basket will be enough for us to handle.”

  “Basket, handle, get it? Handle!” cried Tracy, who loved riddles and crossword puzzles.

  “The next holiday is Mother’s Day, and as our second thing to do to earn our badges I thought it would be nice to think of something we could do that would be extraspecial for our mothers,” said Mrs. Peters. “Or our aunts or grandmas or whomever you wish to honor on Mother’s Day,” she added quickly.

  Hands were waving again.

  “I want to honor my dad on Mother’s Day,” said Roger.

  “He can’t do that, can he, Mrs. Peters?” asked Sonny. “Maybe an aunt, but you can’t make a dad into a mother!”

  Mrs. Peters is treading on thin ice, thought Molly, remembering something her grandma always said. Mrs. Peters has hurt Roger’s feelings once today; she has to watch out.

  “Yes,” their leader said firmly. “If Roger wants to honor his dad on Mother’s Day, it is fine.”

  “Ho ho, are you going to give him a bottle of perfume, or a bunch of flowers?” taunted Sonny.

  “Men like flowers as well as women,” said Ashley. “And I give my dad aftershave lotion, and that’s just like perfume. Sonny is a sexist!”

  All the girls booed Sonny. Mrs. Peters frowned and held up her hands for quiet.

  “Flowers and perfume are for people. Men or women. Now let’s talk about what else we can think of for Mother’s Day. Maybe doing something nice would be better than giving things.”

  “Breakfast in bed,” suggested Tracy.

  “Cleaning the house,” said Kevin.

  “Carrying groceries in,” said Mary Beth. “I do that a lot.”

  “Those are all good suggestions,” said their leader. “But let’s try to think of something out of the ordinary. Something you’ve never done for them before. We have a week to think about it, and by our next meeting you can tell us what you’ve decided. And now for the third project. In spring things look dirty, and I thought it would be nice to help clean up the park, and maybe rake yards for some people who can’t do it themselves. Sort of a community service springtime cleanup.”

  Molly wrote everything down.

  “Boy, that’s a lot of work for one badge!” said Lisa.

  “She’s right,” said Mary Beth. “This spring badge is too much work.”

  Mrs. Peters looked as if she had done a lot of work. Just at this meeting! She looks worn out just from trying to keep the Pee Wees from insulting each other and arguing, thought Molly.

  After the good deeds were reported, and the songs sung, and the cupcakes eaten, the meeting was over.

  On the way out Ashley said, “I think Mrs. Peters should have included St. Patrick’s Day. After all, that’s a spring holiday too.”

  “Well then, so is Valentine’s Day,” said Rachel. “And St. Patrick’s is only for the Irish.”

  Ashley stamped her foot. “It is not,” she said.

  “Well, I think April Fools’ is just as important as that,” said Mary Beth.

  Rat’s knees, thought Molly. Mrs. Peters had decided on the two holidays. There was no use arguing about it. Easter and Mother’s Day were badge makers. All the others would have to be celebrated behind their leader’s back! And April Fools’ was Molly’s choice for that!

  CHAPTER 3

  Up to No Good

  When Molly got home she added
more things to her notebook. She made a list of what she would have to come up with to get this badge.

  First she would have to think of something unusual to put in her basket with the dyed eggs, to take to the nursing home. She wrote down a few ideas with a question mark after each one. Jelly beans? No, that was not unusual. A comb? Maybe. A pencil? They probably had pencils in the nursing home. She left some blank pages in case she thought of something better.

  On the next page she wrote some treats for her mother. Candy? Too common. Flowers? The same. She could pick flowers in the garden, no sense in paying for them. What could she do that she’d never done, and that would really be a surprise? She left a blank page there too, and put a giant question mark. This wasn’t going too well.

  The third thing she did not need to plan. Cleanup day was cleanup day. Someone would give her a rake or a rag and tell her where to go and what to do. No, it was the first two she had to worry about.

  But April Fools’ came before Easter, and before Mother’s Day. So if she wanted to play a trick on Roger it would have to be the first thing she thought about.

  On the next page of the notebook she wrote, “Think of good April Fools’ tricks to play on people. (Especially Roger.) Do it soon.”

  The next day after school, Molly caught up with Mary Beth.

  “We have to work on our April Fools’ trick right away,” she said. “I have an idea.”

  The girls went over to Mary Beth’s house and sat on her porch.

  “Tell me,” said Mary Beth. “What’s your idea?”

  “Well, I think our trick should be on Roger,” said Molly. “I mean he’s the one who is always playing tricks on other people. I think we should get back at him.”

  “April Fools’ is a perfect time to do it,” agreed Mary Beth. “It should be a real good trick, though, like a pail of water falling on his head or ice cubes going down his back.”

  Molly shook her head. “I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “What does Roger hate the most?”