The Mystery of the Missing Egg

By Niggy Binkles

Dolly and Chins lived in Folkwood Apartments, in a big city. The kids, brother and sister, loved animals, birds, trees—in other words, Nature in general.

It was time for the children’s summer holidays. Now that they didn’t have to go to school, they spent a good part of their day watching the garden below from their bedroom window. They were able to observe squirrels scampering in the trees and birds, like robins, kites, crows, and pigeons. Once in a while, they could even spot the neighborhood cat, Biscuit, snoozing on the wall.

The children’s aunt, Eliza, had asked them to come over to spend a few days during their summer vacation with her. She had a lovely, fairy folk-sort of cottage in a little town, away from the busy city. She lived there with her cows, goats and hens, and besides tending to them, she baked bread and cakes.  

Dolly and Chins were very excited about Aunt Eliza’s invitation, but Chins did not want to leave Cherry, their cute little cat, alone at home. She called herself a ‘single mom’ to Cherry, whom she doted on as her daughter. (She had learnt from some magazines about ‘single moms’, and though she didn’t quite understand what that term meant, she would tell her friends she couldn’t attend their birthday parties as she was a busy ‘single mom’ to Cherry!) So, Dolly told Aunt Eliza that he would come by himself and spend a few days with her.

One day, when Dolly was away at Aunt Eliza’s place, Chins got busy neatening up Dolly’s room. As she was tying the curtains, she looked out of the window, and guess what she spotted? Just inside a tin flower box along the ledge was a little white egg, with some dried leaves around it!  “Goodness gracious! Maybe it’s a pigeon’s egg,” she remarked to Cherry, who was comfortably curled up on Dolly’s bookshelf. “What fun! When Dolly comes back, maybe we can watch it hatch!”

Chins called up Dolly on the phone and very excitedly told him about the egg. But the very next day, when she peeped out through the window, she found, to her consternation, that the egg was no longer there! She quickly sent a message on her phone to Dolly saying, “Guess what, Dolly? The egg has gone missing! Maybe the Mumma pigeon or some other bird took it away.”

When Dolly returned from Aunt Eliza’s place, the children sat by the window, having custard and wondering where the egg could have vanished. “I wish the egg were here; we could have watched it hatch, and then you could nanny the baby bird, like I nanny Cherry,” mused Chins.

Dolly replied, “Chins, only God knows where the egg has gone. But we can send blessings to it, and if a bird has taken it, to the bird, too. Come, let’s close our eyes and send positive energy to them… May they be happy and peaceful!” 

That is how Dolly and Chins handled the baffling mystery of the missing egg!

Nature abounds in mysteries, and we do not know the answers to them all, and so, often the best thing to do when confronted with a mystery that seems insoluble is to say, “God knows best”!