# Tae's POV ~~
Eggs scare me. Chickens, too. And buddy, you can laugh at that all you want, but I'm being dead serious here.
It started in the sixth grade with eggs.
And a snake.
And the Jeon brothers.
The Jeon brothers' names are Yeonjun and Beomgyu, but even now I can't tell you which one's which. You never see one without the other. And even though they're not twins, they do look and sound pretty much the same, and they're both in Jennie's class, so maybe one of them got held back.
Although I can't exactly see a teacher voluntarily having either of those maniacs two years in a row.
Regardless, Yeonjun and Beomgyu are the ones who taught me that snakes eat eggs. And when I say they eat eggs, I'm talking they eat them raw and shell-on whole.
I probably would've gone my entire life without this little bit of reptilian trivia if it hadn't been for Jennie. Jennie had this major-league thing for Kim Jong-in and short name Kai, who lives about three blocks down, and every chance she got, she went down there to hang out while he practiced the drums.
Well, boom-boom-whap, what did I care about, right? But then Kai and Jungkook's brothers formed a band, which they named Mystery Pisser.
When my Papa heard about it, she completely wigged out. "What kind of parents would allow their children to be in a band named Mystery Pisser? It's vile. It's disgusting!"
"That's the whole point, Papa," Jennie tried to explain. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just to get a rise out of old people."
"Are you calling me an old, young lady? Because it's certainly getting a rise out of me!"
Jennie just shrugged, implying that my Papa could draw her own conclusion.
"Go! Go to your room," my Papa snapped.
"For what?" Jennie snapped back. "I didn't say a thing!"
"You know perfectly well what to do. Now you go in there and adjust your attitude, young lady!"
So Jennie got another one of her teenage time-outs, and after that any time Jennie was two minutes late coming home for dinner, my Papa would messenger me down to Kai's house to drag her home. It might have been embarrassing for Jennie, but it was worse for me. I was still in elementary school, and the Mystery Pisser guys were in high school. They were ripe and ragged, raging power chords through the neighborhood, while I looked like I'd just gotten back from Sunday school.
I'd get so nervous going down there that my voice would squeak when I'd tell Jennie it was time for dinner. It literally squeaked. But after a while, the band dropped Mystery from their name, and Pisser and its entourage got used to me showing up. And instead of glaring at me, they started saying stuff like, "Hey, baby brother, come on in!
"Hey, Taehyungie boy, wanna jam?"
This, then, is how I wound up in Kim Jong-in's (Kai's) garage, surrounded by high school kids, watching a boa constrictor swallow eggs. Since I'd already seen it down a rat in the Jeon brothers' bedroom, Pisser (band name) had lost at least some of the element of surprise. Plus, I picked up on the fact that they'd been saving this little show to freak me out, and I really didn't want to give them the satisfaction.
This wasn't easy, though, because watching a snake swallow an egg is actually much creepier than you might think. The boa opened its mouth to an enormous size, then just took the egg in and glub! We could see it roll down its throat.
But that wasn't all. After the snake had glubbed down three eggs, Yeonjun-or-Beomgyu said, "So, Taehyungie boy, how's he gonna digest those?"
I shrugged and tried not to squeak when I answered, "Stomach acid?"
He shook his head and pretended to confide, "He needs a tree. Or a leg." He grinned at me. "Wanna volunteer yours?"
I backed away a little. I could just see that monster try to swallow my leg whole as an after-egg chaser. "N-no!"
He laughed and pointed at the boa slithering across the room. "Aw, too bad. He's going the other way. He's gonna use the piano instead!"
The piano! What kind of snake was this? How could my sister stand being in the same room as these dementors? I looked at her, and even though she was pretending to be cool with the snake, I knew Jennie — she was totally creeped out by it.
The snake wrapped itself around the piano leg about three times, and then Yeonjun-or-Beomgyu put his hands up and said, "Shhh! Shhh! Everybody be quiet. Here goes!"
The snake stopped moving and then flexed. And as it flexed, we could hear the eggs crunch inside him. "Oh, gross!" the girls wailed. "Whoa, dude!" the guys all said. Beomgyu and Yeonjun smiled at each other really big and said, "Dinner is served!"
I tried to act cool about the snake, but the truth is I started having bad dreams about the thing swallowing eggs. And rats. And cats.
And me.
Then the real-life nightmare began.
One morning about two weeks after the boa show in Skyler's garage, Jungkook appears on our doorstep, and what's he got in his hands? A half-carton of eggs. He bounces around like it's Christmas, saying, "Hiya, Taehyung! Remember Zuby and Dubby and Eenie and Mainie? Mo and Pixer?"
I just stared at her. Somehow I remembered Santa's reindeer a little differently than that.
"You know…my chickens? The ones I hatched for the science fair last year?"
"Oh, right. How could I forget."
"They're laying eggs!" He pushed the carton into my hands. "Here, take these! They're for you and your family."
"Oh. Uh, thanks," I said and closed the door.
I used to really like eggs. Especially scrambled, with bacon or sausage. But even without the little snake incident, I knew that no matter what you did to these eggs, they would taste nothing but foul to me. These eggs came from the chickens that had been the chicks that had hatched from the eggs that had been incubated by Jungkook Jeon for our fifth-grade science fair.
It was classic Jungkook. He totally dominated the fair, and got this — his project was all about watching eggs. My friend, there is not a lot of action to report on when you're incubating eggs. You've got your light, you've got your container, you've got some shredded newspaper, and that's it. You're done.
Jungkook, though, managed to write an inch-thick report, plus he made diagrams and charts — I'm talking line charts and bar charts and pie charts — about the activity of eggs. Eggs!
He also managed to time the eggs so that they'd hatch the night of the fair. How does a person do that? Here I've got a live-action erupting volcano that I've worked pretty stinking hard on, and all anybody cares about is Jungkook's chicks pecking out of their shells. I even went over to take a look for myself, and — I'm being completely objective here — it was boring. They pecked for about five seconds, then just lay there for five minutes.
I got to hear Jungkook jabber away from the judges, too. He had a pointer — can you believe that? Not a pencil, an actual retractable pointer, so he could reach across his incubator and tap on this chart or that diagram as he explained the excitement of watching eggs grow for twenty-one days.
The only thing he could've done to be more overboard was put on a chicken costume, and buddy, I'm convinced — if he'd thought of it, he would have done it.
But hey — I was over it. It was just Jungkook being Jungkook, right? But all of a sudden there I am a year later, holding a carton of home-grown eggs. And I'm having a hard time not getting annoyed all over again about his stupid blue-ribbon project when my Papa leans out from the hallway and says, "Who was that, honey? What have you got there? Eggs?"
I could tell by the look on his face that he was hot to scramble. "Yeah," I said and handed them to him, "But I'm having cereal."
He opened the carton, then closed it with a smile. "How nice!" he said. "Who brought them over?"
"Jungkook. He grew them."
"Grew them?"
"Well, his chickens did."
"Oh?" His smile started falling as he opened the carton again. "Is that so? I didn't know he had… chickens."
"Remember? You and Dad spent an hour watching them hatch at last year's science fair?"
"Well, how do we know there are not … chicks inside these eggs?"
I shrugged. "Like I said, I'm having cereal." We all had cereal, but what we talked about were eggs. My dad thought they'd be just fine — he'd had farm-fresh eggs when he was a kid and said they were delicious. My mother, though, couldn't get past the idea that he (jin) might be cracking open a dead chick, and pretty soon discussion turned to the role of the rooster — something me and my Cheerios could've done without.
Finally, Jennie said, "If they had a rooster, don't you think we'd know? Don't you think the whole neighborhood would know?"
Hmmm, we all said, good point. But then my Papa pipes up with, "Maybe they got it de-yodeled. You know — like they de-bark dogs?"
"A de-yodeled rooster," my dad says, like it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard. Then he looks at my Papa and realizes that he'd be way better off going along with a de-yodeled idea than making fun of him.
"Hmmm," he says, "I've never heard of such a thing, but maybe so."
Jennie shrugs and says to my Papa, "So just ask them, why don't you? Call up Mrs. Jeon and ask him (jm)."
"Oh," my Papa says. "Well, I'd hate to call her eggs into question. It doesn't seem very polite, now, does it?"
"Just ask Yeonjun or Beomgyu," I say to Jennie.
She scowls at me and hisses, "Shut up."
"What? What'd I do now?"
"Haven't you noticed I haven't been going down there, you idiot?"
"Jennie!" my Papa says. Like this is the first time he's heard my sister talk to me or something.
"Well, it's true! How can he not have noticed?" "I was going to ask you about that, honey. Did something happen?"
Jennie stands up and shoves her chair in. "Like you care," she snaps and charges down to her room.
"Oh, boy," my dad says.
Papa says, "Excuse me," and follows Jennie down the hall.
When my mother's gone, my dad says, "So, son, why don't you just ask Jungkook?"
"Dad!"
"It's just a little question, Taehyung. No harm, no foul."
"But it'll get me a half-hour answer!"
He studies me for a minute, then says, "No boy should be this afraid of a cute boy."
"I'm not afraid of him…!"
"I think you are."
"Dad!"
"Seriously, son. I want you to get us an answer. Conquer your fear and get us an answer."
"To whether or not they have a rooster?"
"That's right." He gets up and clears his cereal bowl, saying, "I've got to get to work and you've got to get to school. I'll expect a report tonight."
Great. Just great. The day was doomed before it had started. But then at school when I told Hyungsik about what had happened, he just shrugged and said, "Well, he lives right across the street from you, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So just go look over the fence."
"You mean spy?"
"Sure."
"But … how can I tell if one of them's a rooster or not?"
"Roosters are …I don't know… bigger. And they have more feathers."
"Feathers? Like I've got to go and count feathers?"
"No, stupid! My Papa says that the male's always brighter." Then he laughs and says, "Although in your case I'm not so sure."
"Thanks. You are giving me big-time help here, buddy. I really appreciate it."
"Look, a rooster's going to be bigger and have brighter feathers. You know, those long ones in the back? They're redder or blacker or whatever. And don't roosters have some rubbery red stuff growing off the top of their head? And some of their necks, too? Yeah, the rooster's got all sorts of rubbery red stuff all around its face."
"So you're saying I'm supposed to look over the fence for big feathers and rubbery red stuff."
"Well, come to think of it, chickens have that rubbery red stuff, too. Just not as much of it."
I rolled my eyes at him and was about to say, 'Forget it, I'll just ask Jungkook', but then he said, "I'll come with you if you want."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, dude. Seriously."
And that, my friend, is how I wound up spying over the Jeons' back fence with Park Hyungsik at three-thirty that afternoon. Not my choice of covert operations, but a necessary one in order to report back to my dad that night at dinner.
We got there fast, too. The bell rang and we basically charged off campus because I figured if we got to the Jeons' quick enough, we could look and leave before Jungkook was anywhere near his house. We didn't even drop off our backpacks. We went straight down the alley and started spying.
It's not really necessary to look over the Jeons' fence. You can see almost as well looking through it. But Hyungsik kept sticking his head up, so I figured I should too, although in the back of my mind, I was aware that Hyungsik didn't have to live in this neighborhood — I did.
The backyard was a mess. Big surprise. The bushes were out of control, there was some kind of hodgepodge wood-and-wire coop off to one side, and the yard wasn't grass, it was highly fertilized dirt.
Hyungsik was the first to notice their dog, sacked out on the patio between two sorry-looking folding chairs. He points at him and says, "You think he's going to give us trouble?"
"We're not going to be here long enough to get in trouble! Where are those stupid chickens?"
"Probably in the coop," he says, then picks up a rock and throws it at the mess of plywood and chicken wire.
At first, all we hear is a bunch of feathers flapping, but then one of the birds comes fluttering out. Not very far, but enough so we can see it's got feathers and rubbery red stuff.
"So?" I ask him. "Is that a rooster?"
He shrugs. "Looks like a chicken to me."
"How can you tell?"
He shrugs again. "Just does."
We watch it scratching at the dirt for a minute, and then I ask, "What's a hen, anyway?"
"A hen?"
"Yeah. You got roosters, you got chickens, and then there's hens. What's a hen?"
"It's one of those," he says, pointing into the Jeons' backyard.
"Then what's a chicken?"
He looks at me like I'm crazy. "What are you talking about?"
"Chickens! What's a chicken?"
He takes a step back from me and says, "Taehyungie boy, you are losin' it. That's a chicken!" He stoops down to pick up another rock, and he's just about to let it fly when the sliding glass door to the back patio opens up, and Jungkook steps outside.
We both duck. And as we're checking him out through the fence, I say, "When did he get home?"
Hyungsik grumbles, "While you were losing it about chickens." Then he whispers, "But hey, that'll work great. He's got a basket, right? He's probably coming out to collect eggs."
First, he had to get all mushy with that mangy mutt of his dog. He got down and nuzzled and ruffled and patted and hugged, telling him what a good boy he was. And when he finally let him go back to sleep, he had to stop and coo at the bird that Hyungsik had scared out, and then he started singing.
Singing. At the top of his lungs, he goes, "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it's cold outsi-ye-yide, I've got the month of May. I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way? My girls. Talkin' 'bout my little gir-ur-rls…" He looks inside the coop and coos, "Hello, Flo! Good afternoon, Bonnie! Come on out, punkin!"
The coop wasn't big enough for him to walk in. It was more like a mini lean-to shack that even his dog would have trouble crawling in. Does that stop Jungkook Jeon? No. He gets down on his hands and knees and dives right in. Chickens come squawking and flapping out, and pretty soon the yard is full of birds, and all we can see of Jungkook's poop-covered shoes.
That's not all we can hear, though. He's warbling inside that coop, going, "I don't need money, no fortune or faaa-ya-yame. I got all the riches, baby, anyone can claim. Well, I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way? My girls. Talkin' 'bout my little gir-ur-rls, my girls…"
•
•
•
At this point I wasn't checking the chickens out for rubbery red stuff or feathers. I was looking at the bottom of Jungkook Jeon's feet, wondering how in the world a person could be so happy tunneling through a dilapidated chicken coop with poop stuck all over his shoes.
Hyungsik got me back on track. "They're all chickens," he says. "Look at 'em."
I quit checking out Jungkook's shoes and started checking out birds. The first thing I did was count them.
One-two-three-four-five-six. All accounted for. After all, how could anyone forget he'd hatched six? It was the all-time school record — everyone in the county had heard about that.
But I was not really sure how to ask Hyungsik about what he had said. Yeah, they were all chickens, but what did that mean? I sure didn't want him coming down on me again, but it still didn't make sense. Finally, I asked him, "You mean there's no rooster?"
"Correctomundo."
"How can you tell?"
He shrugged. "Roosters strut."
"Strut?"
"That's right. And look — none of them have long feathers. Or very much of that rubbery red stuff." He nodded. "Yeah. They're definitely all chickens."
•
•
•
That night my father got right to the point. "So, son, mission accomplished?" he asked as he stabbed into a mountain of fettuccine and whirled his fork around.
I attacked my noodles too and smiled at him. "Uhhuh," I said as I sat up tall to deliver the news. "They're all chickens."
The turning of his fork came to a grinding halt. "And…?"
I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I tried to keep the smile plastered on my face as I said, "And what?"
He rested his fork and stared at me. "Is that what he said? 'They're all chickens'?"
"Uh, not exactly."
"Then exactly what did he say?"
"Uh … he didn't exactly say anything."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I went over there and took a look for myself." I tried very hard to sound like this was a major accomplishment, but he wasn't buying.
"You didn't ask him?"
"I didn't have to. Hyungsik knows a lot about chickens, and we went over there and found out for ourselves."
Jennie came back from rinsing the Romano sauce off her seven-and-a-half noodles, then reached for the salt and scowled at me, saying, "You're the chicken."
"Jennie!" my Papa said. "Be nice."
Jennie stopped shaking the salt. "Mother, he spied. Do you get it? He went over there and looked over the fence. Are you saying you're okay with that?"
My Papa turned to me. "Taehyung? Is that true?"
Everyone was staring at me now, and I felt like I had to save face. "What's the big deal? You told me to find out about his chickens, and I found out about her chickens!"
"Brawk-brawk-brawk!" my sister whispered.
My father still wasn't eating. "And what you found out," he said, like he was measuring every word, "was that they're all… chickens."
"Right."
He sighed, then took that bite of noodles and chewed it for the longest time.
It felt like I was sinking fast, but I couldn't figure out why. So I tried to bail out with, "And you guys can go ahead and eat those eggs, but there's no way I'm going to touch them, so don't even ask."
My mother's looking back and forth from my dad to me while he eats his salad, and I can tell he's waiting for him (joonie) to address my adventure as a neighborhood operative. But since he's not saying anything, he (jin) clears his throat and says, "Why's that?"
"Because there's … well, there's …I don't know how to say this nicely."
"Just say it," my father snaps.
"Well, there's, you know, excrement everywhere."
"Oh, gross!" my sister says, throwing down her fork.
"You mean chicken droppings?" my Papa asks.
"Yeah. There's not even a lawn. It's all dirt and, uh, you know, chicken turds. The chickens walk in it and peck through it and…"
"Oh, gross!" Jennie wails.
"Well, it's true!"
Jennie stands up and says, "You expect me to eat after this?" and stalks out of the room.
"Jennie! You brat. You have to eat something," my Papa calls after her.
"No, I don't!" he shouts back; then a second later he sticks her head back into the dining room and says, "And don't expect me to eat any of those eggs either, Mother. Does the word salmonella mean anything to you?"
Jennie takes off down the hall and my Papa says, "Salmonella?" She turns to my father. "Do you suppose they could have salmonella?"
"I don't know, Jin-ie. I'm more concerned that our son is a coward."
"A coward! Joonie, please. Taehyung is no such thing. He's a wonderful child who's —"
"Who's afraid of a boy?"
"Dad, I'm not afraid of him, he just bugs me!"
"Why?"
"You know why! He bugs you, too. He's over the top about everything!"
"Taehyung, I asked you to conquer your fear, but all you did was give in to it. If you were in love with him, that would be one thing. Love is something to be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing. So he talks too much, so he's too enthused about every little thing, so what? Get in, get your question answered, and get out. Stand up to him, for cryin' out loud!"
"Joon…," my Papa was saying, "Joonie, calm down. He did find out what you asked him to — "
"No, he didn't!"
"What do you mean?"
"He tells me they're all chickens! Of course, they're all chickens! The question is how many are hens, and how many are roosters."
I could almost hear the click in my brain, and man, I felt like a complete doofus. No wonder he was disgusted with me. I was an idiot! They were all chickens … du-uh! Hyungsik acted like he was some expert on chickens, and he didn't know diddly-squat! Why had I listened to him?
But it was too late. My dad was convinced I was a coward, and to get me over it, he decided that what I should do was take the carton of eggs back to the Jeons and tell them we didn't eat eggs, or that we were allergic to them, or something.
Then my Papa butts in with, "What are you teaching him here, Joon? None of that is true. If he returns them, shouldn't he tell them the truth?"
"What, that you're afraid of salmonella poisoning?"
"Me? Aren't you a little concerned, too?"
"Jin-ie, that's not the point. The point is, I will not have a coward for a son!"
"But teaching him to lie?"
"Fine. Then just throw them away. But from now on I expect you to look that little tiger square in the eye, you hear me?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay, then."
I was off the hook for all of about eight days. Then there he was again, at seven in the morning, bouncing up and down on our porch with eggs in his hands. "Hi, Tae-hyungie! Here you go."
I tried to look him square in the eye and tell him, No thanks, but he was so darned happy, and I wasn't really awake enough to tackle the tiger. He wound up pushing another carton into my hands, and I wound up ditching them in the kitchen trash before my father sat down to breakfast.
This went on for two years. Two years! And it got to a point where it was just part of my morning routine. I'd be on the lookout for Jungkook so I could whip the door open before he had the chance to knock or ring the bell, and then I'd bury the eggs in the trash before my dad showed up.
Then came the day I blew it. Jungkook would actually be making himself pretty scarce because it was around the time they'd taken the sycamore tree down, but suddenly one morning he was back on our doorstep, delivering eggs. I took them, as usual, and I went to chuck them, as usual.
But the kitchen trash was so full that there wasn't any room for the carton, so I put it on top, picked up the trash, and beat it out the front door to empty everything into the garbage can outside.
Well, guess who's just standing there like a statue on my porch?
The Egg Chick.
I spilled the trash all over the porch. "What are you still doing here?" I asked him.
"I…I don't know. I was just … thinking."
"About what?" I was desperate. I needed a distraction. Some way around him with this garbage before he noticed what was sitting right there on top.
He looked away like he was embarrassed. Jeon Jungkook embarrassed? I didn't think it was possible.
Whatever. The golden opportunity to whip a soggy magazine over the egg carton had presented itself, and buddy, I took it. Then I tried to make a fast break for the garbage can in the side yard, only he body-blocked me. Seriously. He stepped right in my way and put his arms out like he's guarding the goal.
He chased me and blocked me again. "What happened?" he wants to know. "Did they break?"
Perfect. Why hadn't I thought of that?
"Yeah, Jungkook," I told him. "And I'm really sorry about that." But what I'm thinking is, Please, God, oh please, God, let me make it to the garbage can.
God must've been sleeping in. Jungkook tackled the trash and pulled out his precious little carton of eggs, and he could tell right off that they weren't broken. They weren't even cracked.
He stood frozen with the eggs in his hands while I dumped the rest of the trash. "Why did you throw them out?" He asked, but his voice didn't sound like Jeon Jungkook's voice. It was quiet. And shaky.
So I told him we were afraid of salmonella poisoning because his yard was a mess and that we were just trying to spare his feelings. I told him that we were right and he was wrong, but I felt like a jerk. A complete cluck-faced jerk.
Then he tells me that a couple of neighbors have been buying eggs from him. Buying them. And while I'm coming to grips with this incredible bit of news, he whips out his mental calculator. "Do you realize I've lost over a hundred dollars giving these eggs to you?" Then he races across the street in a flood of tears.
As much as I tried to tell myself that I hadn't asked him for the eggs—I hadn't said we wanted them or needed them or liked them—the fact was, I'd never seen Jungkook cry before. Not when he'd broken his arm in P.E., not when he'd been teased at school or ditched by his brothers. Not even when they'd cut down the sycamore tree. I'm pretty sure he cried then, but I didn't actually see it. To me, Jeon Jungkook had always been too tough to cry.
I went down to my room to pack my stuff for school, feeling like the biggest jerk to ever hit the planet. I'd been sneaking around throwing out eggs for over two years, avoiding him, avoiding my father — what did that make me? Why hadn't I just stood up and said, No thanks, don't want 'em, don't need 'em, don't like 'em…. Give them to the snake, why don't you? Something!
Was I really afraid of hurting his feelings?
Or was I afraid of him?