by Martha Hynson
Spinning Eggs
On Tuesday, Macy rode the bus like always. Mama did not agree about getting a cow. But it worked out fine because Beautiful Bella rode Macy’s bus! She was not mad about the eggs at all.
At school, they skipped to class together. Smarty-Pants Samantha told Bella she had brought her a cookie shaped like a bunny. Too bad. All Macy had were crackers that were shaped like crackers.
It did not turn out to matter. At snack time, Miss Snow said, “I’m sorry, boys and girls. We can’t share food. Some students have allergies.”
Macy was glad she was not allergic to anything good. She only got sick when she ate broccoli.
After snack, it was time for science. Macy’s eyes got big when she saw Miss Snow pick up two eggs.
“Boys and girls, did you know you can all be scientists? Macy was a scientist yesterday when she cracked those eggs. Her experiment showed you can’t tell if an egg is cooked just by looking at it.”
Macy smiled and wiggled a loose tooth with her tongue.
“Today we’ll do another experiment.” Miss Snow held up the two eggs. “One of these has been cooked. The other one hasn’t. Let’s find out which is which.”
“Macy and Bella, come be my helpers.” Miss Snow handed them each an egg. “Make them spin,” she said. “Then touch them lightly to make them stop.”
Bella’s egg spun fast. She put her finger on it and it stopped right away.
“Your egg is cooked,” said Miss Snow. “It stopped spinning because the inside is solid and doesn’t slosh around.”
Then it was Macy’s turn. She tried to make her egg spin like Bella’s but it just wobbled around. Even when Macy touched the shell, it didn’t stop.
“Macy, you have the uncooked egg,” said Miss Snow. “It has a runny middle that sloshes around and makes the egg wobble.”
Miss Snow took two good-choice tickets out of her desk. “Good job, girls,” she said and handed them each a ticket.
Yay! Hey, wait, what was Miss Snow doing now? She held the uncooked egg way up high and then she let it go. On purpose.
Samantha’s mouth fell open. Jonah bounced up and down so hard his chair turned over. The egg hit the table. Splat! Miss Snow picked up the shell.
“Let’s see if a paper towel will clean this up,” she said.
Macy could not wait to find out. If it did clean it up maybe they could be on a commercial. Everybody would want paper towels that could clean up that mess.
It was a good thing they were not in a commercial because it did not work. The mess just spread out more.
“It looks like snot!” Jonah stood up and pretended to blow his nose.
Samantha screamed and pointed at Jonah. “He got snot on my face!”
“Go wash your face, Samantha,” said Miss Snow. She rubbed the sides of her neck. “Jonah, take out Mr. Stretchy.” Mr. Stretchy was a blue blob that helped Jonah sit still. He was the only one allowed to play with it.
Miss Snow breathed real deep and picked up a box. “Boys and girls, this is a box of salt. What do you think will happen if I pour some on the egg?” She started passing out paper. “Draw and write about what you think might happen.”
“I think we could make scrambled eggs,” said Jonah. “We would just need to pick out the little pieces of shell.”
“It would be hard to get all the shell out,” Macy said. “And scrambled eggs should not be crunchy.”
But cookies should. Macy took out her special pen. It could write in ten different colors. She pushed the brown button. The clicky sound made her smile. She drew some cookies. Next came icing. She clicked the pink button down. She made it go up again, then down. Click, click, click.
Jackson stared at her. “Please stop clicking, Macy,” he said.
Since he asked very polite, she did just one more click and started to draw the icing.
After that, Miss Snow poured salt on the egg. It turned out they didn’t make cookies. They did an experiment. And what do you know, the salt made the mess not runny anymore. Now a paper towel cleaned it up in a jiffy.
“Will it work on snot, too?” Jonah wiped his nose on his sleeve.