None of this would’ve happened if Daddy hadn’t fallen asleep. Mama was working her shift at the hospital and since he wasn’t working that weekend, he was supposed to be watching my baby brother and me. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day with just the right amount of breeze to make it comfortable. Daddy had taken us back to the pond that morning, propping brother up on some old quilts in the back of his pickup truck and trying to teach me how to bait a hook. I didn’t want to touch the juicy red wrigglers, so he just kept doing it for me. I caught a couple of bream the size of fish sticks and decided I had had enough, so I whined until Daddy packed everything back up and took us home. And besides, I had wet my pants because I was too scared to squat behind the tree. I don’t care what Daddy said, it looked like prime boogeyman territory to me.

We got back home around 11:30 and had an early lunch of boiled hot dogs and boxed macaroni and cheese. Brother had his Gerber peas and applesauce and went down for a nap. I, on the other hand, had established that I was too old for naps. Daddy said “I don’t care what you do, just go to your room and be quiet. If you wake up your brother, I will tan your hide.” Let me explain. If you weren’t raised in the South, bless your heart, you might not understand that there are echelons to corporal punishment. There’s the “pop”, usually reserved for babies and toddlers, which is just a little tap on the hand or foot. This says, “You’re too little for a spanking, but in a couple years this is going to turn into one. Straighten up, little grasshopper.” There’s the spanking, a traditional hand to butt transaction. The next level of discipline would be the “whooping”, which usually entails a paddle, switch, or belt. You have really ticked off one of your elders at this point, but the worst punishment of all is “tan your hide”. It is typically administered by fathers or really mean Grannies and is reserved for special occasions.

So I pitter pattered back to my bedroom and closed the door.

You can’t fault a 6-year-old for being curious. It’s in the nature of an intelligent child to question the world around him or her, and I was brilliant, thank you very much. It occurred to me, sitting there in my quiet bedroom, that if a chicken could hatch an egg by sitting on it, then so could I.

With this notion, I considered that Daddy had not yet gotten the eggs that day and wouldn’t I be helpful if I just went ahead and took care of that chore for him? He would be appreciative that I had done him this favor, him being so tired and all. So with Daddy sawing logs in his living room chair, I set out on my mission.

The window was a little tricky to get open, but with a little finagling, I finally figured out how to unlock the window and push it up. The screen was easy—it just popped right out. As luck would have it, the monstrous air conditioner was right below my window, just like a stairstep. I hopped down onto the unit and right down to the soft green grass below.

I ran all the way to the chicken pen. (See, there’s part of the trail from our house all the way to Granny’s house that Papa’s shop casts a shadow over. One does not simply walk past the shop. You must run or the boogeyman will get you.) I jumped to unlatch the eye hook on the door, propped it open, and went on in the pen. Thinking I was about to feed them, the fowl followed me back to their nests, where I found six brown eggs and two beautiful blue ones. I held out my too-short t-shirt and put the eggs in the pouch as I had seen Granny do before to carry eggs. One rolled out the side and cracked on the ground, so I set the rest of the eggs down on the dirt while I tried to cover it up. Daddy wouldn’t like it if he saw that I had dropped one of his precious eggs. This turned out to be kind of fun, it looking like brownie batter and all, so I plopped down right there in the chicken shit and made a beautiful mud pie. The chickens were starting to peck at the eggs I had laid on the ground, so I scooped them back up and headed back for home. As it turns out, I forgot to shut the door to the pen.

By this time, Daddy was up and yelling my name desperately, “Alice! Aliiiiiiiiiice! Oh God, oh God, I’ve lost my child!” I knew I was in trouble, so I snuck in the back door and went to my room just as he started off toward the corn field. I could still hear him yelling my name, but I was right back where I was supposed to be, and besides, his only rule was that I not wake up brother. He didn’t say I couldn’t go get the eggs.

I proceeded with my science experiment. I decided that I should take off my pants to sit on the egg, because chickens don’t wear pants. I placed the first egg on the floor and sat on it. Smush. I took the second egg and made a nest for it with the blanket off my bed. I gently sat on it this time. Smush. It was when I picked up the third egg that I heard Daddy howling with tears outside and figured I better go check on him. I had never heard Daddy cry at all, much less like this. “Oh God, oh God! Please! Where is my baby girl? Please God!”

I creeped out of my room and toward the kitchen door as Daddy trudged up the stoop. I saw the shadow of a great winged demon fly up from the floor as Daddy opened the screen door. “Squawwwk!” The rooster! The rooster got out! The rooster was on Daddy’s head!

As Daddy flailed and fought with the rooster, I ran for my life toward the back door and all the way to Granny’s house. I was surely a goner unless I made it into the loving arms of our matriarch. Standing in my underwear with raw egg all over my butt, I banged on her back door with all my might. “Granny! Granny! You’ve got to let me in! Grannnnnnyyyyyy!”

Thinking the worst, Granny opened the door and shooed me inside, locking the door behind me… and she never locked the door. “What on earth, Alice? What on earth is it?” I explained to her in no uncertain terms that I was just trying to help get the eggs and the rooster got out and Daddy was going to kill me. Kill me dead.

When Daddy came up to Granny’s door, he had a dead rooster in one hand and his belt in the other. “You’ll not lay a hand on this child,” Granny proclaimed as she consoled me in her rocking chair, feeding me an oatmeal cookie and a Coca-Cola. Granny saved my life that day.

Mama was grateful that, after a long day on her feet, she didn’t have to cook supper. “Granny, it was so sweet of you to cook supper tonight. This is the best chicken and rice I think I’ve ever tasted.”

“Rooster and rice,” Daddy moaned, his eyes downcast.